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Chapter Text

Luke shaded his daughter’s eyes as Enfys Nest’s ship vanished into the sky, along with several newly-freed slaves. (Skywalker was a slave name, and the Lars farm had been a stop on the Freedom Trail long before Luke had been born). 

As miserable as life on Tattooine might be, it was still better than the constant danger that comprised Enfys’s life, so when they discovered that their brief fling during one of her pit-stops had lead to somewhat more permanent consequences, they agreed that little Rey should be raised by her father and grandparents. Uncle Owen had turned an interesting shade of purple, but Aunt Beru had put her foot down, and that was that. Besides, it gave Uncle Owen a better argument for Luke staying put, rather than asking permission to go to the Imperial Flight Academy. Again.

As the ship vanished, a Jawa scavenging vessal crested a nearby dune. Luke sighed, and went to put his three-month-old daughter down for a nap, and hide everything that wasn’t nailed down. Jawas were not known for respecting other people’s property. Or sometimes even personhood, if they thought they could get away with it. 
(Skywalker was a slave name, and more than one person on the Freedom Trail had thought to bribe the Jawas for help, only to find themselves back in bondage.)

Enfys had been twelve when she donned her mother’s mask and took up the task of making Imperial lives difficult. Her mother had been seventeen when the Jedi Order fell and Tallisibeth had fled, assuming the name Heydi, meaning scout, as the only reminder of her past. It allowed her to survive, when nearly all of the other Jedi Knights and Masters and apprentices and younglings who escaped the massacre across a thousand different worlds were hunted down by the Empire. 
Enfys had trusted him with the truth, just in case Rey’s Jedi heritage ever became an issue. It hadn’t, so far, because the few Stormtroopers on Tattooine rarely moved from the cities, but that was no assurance that it wouldn’t. The sands of the desert were ever-shifting, after all, and only a fool failed to pay attention when the wind was blowing. 

When the farm’s new R2 unit displayed a message from a startlingly beautiful princess who was even more startlingly familiar, even though Luke knew he’d never seen her before in his life, he had the bad feeling that Jedi heritage was about to become very much an issue.

‘Kenobi’ was the name of an old hermit who lived on the edge of the Junland Wastes, who had been there all of Luke’s life. It wasn’t an uncommon name in the Outer Rim, but nor was it common enough that there were likely to be two men of the same name old enough to have fought in the last Galactic War.

When Uncle Owen too-casually brought up the potential of Luke going to the Imperial Flight Academy in a year or two, something he had firmly shot down every time Luke had raised the subject in the past, Luke took it as confirmation that his Uncle knew something about Ben Kenobi. Even more, it was something dangerous, something that his Uncle thought was a threat to Luke’s quiet existence. Luke had no intention of endangering Rey, but the least he could do was make sure that the droid got to Old Ben safely.

Rey was too young to do much more than eat and sleep, but Luke made sure to spend some time with her before he left with C-3PO in R2-D2’s wake, the little astromech going as far as his restraining bolt would allow before the homestead had even started rising. Luke sighed as he climbed back into the speeder. “That little droid is going to cause a lot of trouble.”

C-3PO’s gears whirled slightly as he inclined his head. “Oh, he excels at that, sir.”

That wasn’t as reassuring as the protocol droid seemed to think, but it was too late to worry now, as the little astromech was already racing across the sand toward the Duneland Wastes. Luke gunned the motor and took off after him. Old Ben had better be the right Kenobi, or this was going to be a colossal waste of time.
Luke had imagined a slightly more graceful way of meeting the hermit than being ambushed and knocked out by Tusken Raiders, but at least they had found the right General Kenobi.

Hearing more about his father and being given something of his was an unexpected pleasure, but also a quandary. A year ago, Luke would have jumped at the chance to get off Tattooine and see the galaxy. A year ago, he hadn’t patched up Enfys after a battle that nearly killed her, hadn’t sat with her through med-droid appointments and four hours of childbirth. A year ago, he hadn’t been responsible for a child.

Slowly, Luke shook his head. “I can’t. I’ll take you to the spaceport, but I have responsibilities here. Perhaps I’ll join you when Rey is older, but not yet.”

Ben looked as though he had been about to say something, but cut himself off. “Rey?”

The mere mention of her brought a smile to Luke’s face. “My daughter. I – oh, what now? It’s not as though I’m asking you to babysit!”

Ben had undergone a full-body flinch at the word daughter, but hastily recovered. “As I stated when your mother was pregnant with you, I don’t babysit Skywalkers. Raising your father as my apprentice was quite enough, and watching over you from a distance nearly as bad.”

Luke had so many questions about that, but put them to the side for the moment. “Either way, she’ll be waking up soon. Would you like that lift, or not?”

The vague sense of… wrongness that had plagued Luke all morning only grew stronger when they found the smoking wreck of the Jawa Sandcruiser. It blared to life with the clarity of a Tusken Raider Alert with the realisation of where, and who, the Jawa’s sale records would lead them next. The speeder had stalled, but Luke couldn’t waste time fixing it. He took off running, faster than he had in his life, faster than he had thought humanly possible, the desert blurring around him.

Smoke billowed from the homestead, two charred corpses lying out the front as Luke came to a halt and nearly collapsed, all his strength drained from his body in an instant. Had running so far and so fast been the Force Ben was talking about? Did it matter? Did anything matter, with his family gone? How-

A high, thin wail from the underground shelter, a secret precaution in case of a raid like the one that killed Luke’s grandmother, broke him out of his despair. Luke flung open the trapdoor, jumping down to pick up the screaming, red-faced, precious bundle, who had clearly sensed him and was expressing her displeasure with the situation. Luke rocked his daughter gently with one arm, reaching down to pick up the small bag that had lain beside her.

A supply of baby things, some precious family holos, four generations from his grandmother and father as a boy, the one of Enfys and himself with a newborn Rey. A model x-wing and the tiny pilot doll Beru had stitched for him when he was a baby. All that was left of his home and life.

First things first. Luke soothed Rey down to hiccupping sobs, then to an exhausted sleep. Then he set her down in the shade and let his own tears fall as he buried Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru next to his grandparents and the marker set up for the empty grave that, in another life, would have held his father and unknown mother. 

Ben and the droids appeared with the fixed speeder just as Luke finished filling the new graves and picked up Rey again. Kindly, he didn’t mention Luke’s red-rimmed eyes. “What will you do now?”

Luke blinked hard, and drew a deep breath, steadying himself. “I’m coming with you. There’s nothing left for us here, but perhaps we can settle on Alderaan.”

Ben nodded. “I will drive, you rest for a while, Force-enhanced speed requires a lot of energy, even for one with as much potential as you.”

Luke was too tired to argue, and settled into the passenger seat, the bags tucked under his feet and Rey secure in his arms.

One day, he would return to Tattooine. Until then, all he could do was walk the path that the gods had set before him. There were a thousand ways to enslave a galaxy, and ten thousand more to make it free.

Chapter Text

Mos Eisley was a nightmare. More than a nightmare, because it was all too real. It boiled down to being inhabited entirely by people who either cared more about money than about sentient lives or rights, or who were the disregarded sentient lives in question, with no hope and no choice.
Luke didn’t question how Ben got them past the stormtroopers searching for droids, too busy fashioning a makeshift baby sling for Rey. The speeder would be fine for the time it took them to find a pilot, but there was no way he was leaving his daughter unattended in a place like this, not for a second. Equally, however, he was likely to need both of his hands at some point.

That someone would try to pick a fight was inevitable. It was a classic tactic, to find someone who looked like a soft mark and see how they reacted to you throwing your weight around. Luke didn’t look up when the humanoid pounded on his shoulder, shifting only slightly so that he wouldn’t jostle Rey. “He doesn’t like you.”

Luke did his best to imitate the bounty hunters he had occasionally seen in Anchorhead, the ones who didn’t need to pick a fight because they knew they would win. “How nice for him.”

A few other beings paying a little too much attention promptly went back to their drinks. Those located closer to the potential action unobtrusively distanced themselves a little further. The humanoid and his alien friend, probably flunkies trying to make a name for themselves, looked annoyed that their initial play failed. “He doesn’t like you either.”

As escalation attempts went, that wasn’t one of the best. Luke shifted in his seat, ready to dodge. “I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone who cares.”

In the corner, Obi-Wan was talking to a Wookie with some degree of familiarity. Luke dodged the alien, kicked the humanoid hard enough that he wouldn’t be getting up in a hurry, and walked over to Ben’s table. The old man looked both amused and nostalgic. “Your mother would have been proud of how you handled that. She never started a fight, but she was very good at finishing them.”

He gestured at the Wookie, who was also giving off an air of amusement. “This is Chewbacca, he’s the co-pilot on a ship willing to take us to Alderaan.” The Wookie roared something, and Ben laughed. “I’m sure we’ll be fine. Luke, I suggest selling the skyhopper.”

Luke nodded, there was no point keeping it in storage, and the speeder was too large for most ships to fit it in the cargo space. There were a few spots on the Freedom Trail who could use a speeder as heavily modified as Luke’s, and not ask too many questions. “I shouldn’t take too long. What hanger should I meet you in?”

The Wookie roared again, and Obi-Wan translated, then added, “Chewbacca says that he has experience with younglings, if you would prefer not to risk young Rey in the less-savory parts of town.”

That wasn’t a terrible idea, given that Luke would have to pass through some rough areas, and they would be trusting the Wookie and his Captain with their lives soon enough anyway. Luke carefully unwrapped the sling, and Chewbacca proved that he had been telling the truth by adjusting the wrap of the fabric, and fastening it around himself so that Rey was nestled securely against the furry chest, a tiny hand reaching out to clutch a handful of his pelt. From what Luke could make out of Chewbacca’s expression, the hard part would be stopping the Wookie from adopting her outright. Luke wasn’t helpless, but he wasn’t sure he was up to fighting a literal custody battle with Chewbacca.

Either way, few beings would be foolish enough to attack Rey while she was under such protection. Luke went to sell the Skyhopper and send a message to Enfys. The sooner they were off Tattooine and on their way to somewhere safe, the better.

Enfys and Rey had got Luke started on his knowledge of the Force some months ago, even if Enfys didn’t know much about the Jedi way of life or teaching. Learning to turn off him five main senses, after a lifetime of relying on them, and focus on a sense that was more instinct than controlled awareness, was the hardest part. Luke tried to think of it like racing, or the constant alertness of keeping track of a precocious baby – Chewie still hadn’t relinquished the sling – but he still tended to over-think it and be just a hair too slow to block the droid.

Then Obi-Wan clutched his heart and sank onto a chair, and Rey wailed in distress like she never had before, and it felt like a concussive force had slammed into him. Luke pulled his daughter out of the sling, trying to soothe her, “What was that?”

Obi-Wan was pale, dazed and hurt, but not on a physical level. “I don’t know. It was as though billions of voices cried out in fear, and were suddenly silenced.”

The Falcon jolted as it came out of hyperspace, seemingly into an asteroid field. But Luke had watched as Solo punched in the co-ordinates. The screams he had felt in the Force… something had happened, and the asteroid field was – or had been – Alderaan. Three moons still floated nearby, amid the smaller chunks of what had been a lush green planet… Luke frowned, “I thought Alderaan only had two moons.”

Obi-Wan’s gaze was also locked on the third grey sphere. “That’s no moon…”

The Falcon jolted again, not by impact, but with a distinct shudder that made Captain Solo swear loudly. “Tractor Beam!”

Luke wasn’t surprised that the Millennium Falcon had smuggling compartments, just grateful that they were big enough for all of them to fit. Obi-Wan had performed a small sleep suggestion to make sure that Rey stayed quiet. When the stormtroopers passed, they awkwardly climbed back out, stretching cramped limbs.

Obi-Wan brushed off his robes and took the sling from Chewbacca. “I’ll deal with the Tractor Beam. I’d tell you to stay put, but you’d probably listen as well as your father ever did, so I suggest that you find where the Princess is being held – I can feel her presence, she’s on this base – and have a pre-determined escape route.”

Huh, so his father hadn’t been much of a one for planning then, and had a tendency to follow his instincts. Good to know. “What about Rey?”

Obi-Wan considered, “I can conceal myself and Rey from notice, and the Tractor Beam won’t be as heavily guarded.”

That was true enough, and Luke didn’t really want to risk her being discovered if Stormtroopers decided to do a second, more thorough sweep. He nodded, and handed his daughter over, glancing at Han, who looked prepared to argue at the idea of risking his neck more than he already had. “The sooner we find her, the sooner we get out of here.”

Luke regretted a lot of things in his life, but everything that led to him listening to Han and Princess Leia bicker as they ran down the halls with Stormtroopers in hot pursuit was very high on the list.

If they were back on Tattooine, he would have told them to get a room and get over it, but here and now, that was likely to end badly. Still, they made it back to the Falcon without too many incidents, and Han started up the engines. Luke spotted Obi-Wan hastening across the hanger bay… when a door opened, revealing a dark, menacing figure.

Luke swore under his breath, and again more loudly, as the unmistakable form of Darth Vader advanced on his mentor and child. “So Obi-Wan, we meet again. When last – is that a BABY?”

No one missed how the vocorder stuttered and glitched, as though Darth Vader’s voice had tried to rise in a near-shriek, and the suit failed to compensate. Obi-Wan sighed dramatically, “I know you barely listened when I explained the facts of life to you the first time, but I am not as unfamiliar with the process as you seem to have believed.”

The sound Vader made could be best likened to a malfunctioning screech, and Obi-Wan took the opportunity to bolt toward the Falcon. Luke grabbed Rey as soon as they were close enough, and the Falcon barely waited for the ramp to close before they blasted out of the hanger and toward Yavin IV.

The princess looked at Obi-Wan in awe as the old man lowered himself into a seat. “How did you do that? No-one has been able to throw Vader off his game before!”

Obi-Wan smiled, humour tinged with bitterness. “He was my student, once, with just as much flair for the dramatic. Throwing him off track with something he didn’t expect became something of an art form, and anything that hinted that I wasn’t a chaste hermit from birth was always effective.”

That… wasn’t a mental image Luke particularly needed. He shared a subtlely horrified glance with Leia as Rey happily sucked at her bottle and Obi-Wan drifted into nostalgia. “He always was so very easy to scandalise, and somehow clung to the belief that being part of a religious order meant celibacy. We generally insisted on waiting until you were the legal age of consent and preferably until you had been knighted, but outside of that, your personal life way your own.”

Well, that was a relief. Luke might not have a strict term for exactly what his relationship with Enfys was, but if being a Jedi meant giving up what remained of his family… Perhaps a change of topic was in order. “How long to Yavin IV? I think our timeline to get these plans analysed for an exploitable weakness just got a lot shorter.”

Chapter Text

When he got his TIE fighter back under control and out of the blast zone, then back to somewhere with privacy and a stable comm connection, Vader wasted no time seeking the identity of the pilot who had successfully destroyed the Death Star while he waited for his own flagship and troops to come and retrieve him.

It was easy, the Dark Side feeding off his rage to direct him to the right places to look. The freighter that had managed to take him by surprise belonged to a smuggler employed by Jabba the Hutt, Han Solo. Vader would have happily killed him on principle, as he did any employees of the oversized slug that got in his way, but now it was personal.

When he found answers about the pilot…

Luke Skywalker.

Skywalker was a slave name, but a freeborn Skywalker, raised on Tattooine with Owen and Beru Lars, with Padme’s chin and his colouring and power in the force and flying skill…

Padme’s child – their child – hadn’t died with her. He hadn’t killed them. The Emperor had lied. Obi-Wan was going to die slowly for his part in the deception. Vader almost shut down the Terminal and stalked off to do something drastic, half-formed ideas already swirling in his mind, but the Force prodded him again, not the Dark Side, but the Light he hadn’t reached for in so long. Vader searched deeper, and came across a transmission intercepted from Yavin 4, just before the Imperial Fleet arrived and found the Rebel base deserted.

It was a short message, and a holo-picture. Luke, with a tiny girl who bore Shmi Skywalker’s unforgettable eyes and sleek brown hair. The girl was sitting, after a fashion, braced against Luke’s body. A toy x-wing was slowly floating toward them. The message was short, only a few words, but they meant everything. ‘Rey. These are her first steps’.

Vader’s first thought was relief. For all Kenobi’s treachery, he had been like a father to his old apprentice, and to Ahsoka in turn when Vader had been more of an older brother. His old Master’s insistence on flirting with every being in the galaxy not trying to kill him – and a few that were, Ventress and Ohnaka – was bad enough, but a child? At his age? Luke might be young, but the idea of his son having children didn’t threaten to turn Vader’s world on its head.

Luke Skywalker, a son that Obi-Wan had sacrificed everything he had left to protect. Vader briefly wondered who his son had married, or not married, if that was the case, to produce Rey.

Rey Skywalker, his grandchild.

A grandchild small and vulnerable and strong in the Force, who the Emperor would love to get his hands on. Vader’s blood ran cold at the thought, and one of his half-formed ideas solidified into a plan

His troops comprised the remainder of the Clone Army, those who hadn’t eaten a blaster when their chips degraded or were removed. (There had still been enough of Anakin left to abhor anything that resembled Slave Detonators, as the Kaminoans had discovered to their detriment, when they were forced to reverse the accelerated aging at blaster- and lightsabre-point).

His troops were loyal to him, whether by appreciation that he didn’t engage in politics as so many of the Grand Moffs did, or because he got results, and while he killed the people who failed or disobeyed him, he never did so without cause. Vader was honest enough to admit that he had taken shameless advantage of how much the Clones missed ‘their’ Jedi, the few people in the galaxy who had treated them like they mattered, and transferred that loyalty to him. It was a risk, especially in the early years when Obi-Wan would show up on a random planet halfway across the Galaxy from Vader, cause massive amounts of trouble, and vanish before he could be captured. Vader knew it was useless chasing after him – when Obi-Wan didn’t want to be found, he wasn’t – but it was a choice between turning the Executor around or having the 212^th go after their General without him.

Given the information that Obi-Wan was alive, Commander Nasaarde, once Cody, would be only moments ahead of the rest of his battalion in searching for his Jedi. Most of the 501^st wouldn’t be far behind. Vader barely dared to think the rest of his plan, certain that the Emperor would somehow find out.

There were a number of Officers whose appointment Vader had not had a say in, and who he would have to get rid of first, but that would be easy enough. For now… he summoned Captain Piett, General Veers and Cody to his quarters.

When all three men stood before him, Vader made sure that every conceivable defence against eavesdropping was engaged. “Have a seat, Gentlemen. This may take a while.”

They exchanged cautious glances, but obeyed. Vader tried to think of how best to present the information, and decided to do his best imitation of Padme and Obi-Wan. They had always been good at getting results. “I recently discovered that I have been lied to by the Emperor, in a number of serious matters.”

There was no reply, only some minor shifting. Beneath his mask, Vader was tempted to sulk when Cody did the slight eyebrow twitch that indicated he was privately calling someone a Drama King. Vader almost missed Kenobi; he was willing to indulge his former apprentice’s flair. Well, the news itself was shocking enough, that would have to do. “Notably, the survival of my child.”

Veers and Piett twitched; Cody raised an eyebrow. “You and the Senator weren’t subtle, sir. What do you need us to do?”

Anakin put the first half of Cody’s statement aside; clones had different ideas of perceptive than the majority of the galaxy. “It is the way of the Sith for the Apprentice to kill the Master and take their place. Palpatine’s backing of the Death Star proves that he is not what is best for the Empire. Unfortunately, I can’t do it alone.”

Veers and Piett went very still. “You intend to defect, sir?”

Vader nodded. “Yes.”

He had fallen for the desire to save his wife. In the hope of protecting his son and grandchild, perhaps it was possible to rise again.

Once the celebrations for the Death Star’s destruction had (finally) died down, and the evacuation plans were underway, Obi-Wan managed to pull Luke and Leia aside for a few minutes.

The bond between them was strong, despite their years of separation, and Obi-Wan had enough problems without the two of them mistaking their familial ties for something else entirely. Satine, coming from the foster- and adoption-rich culture of Mandalore, had many stories of siblings meeting years or decades later, unaware of their kinship, and the awkwardness that resulted. Besides, if Obi-Wan never had to deal with Han sulking at him while the twins spent time together and Leia cooed over Rey, it would still be too soon.

Better to nip all that in the bud.

He eased his old bones into a chair – all this running around was not kind to him – and automatically lifted Rey onto his lap with a wave of his hand as he tried to think of how best to start. “Your parents were Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala.”

Leia started, recognising the second name even if Luke didn’t. “My father told me of her. He said she was pregnant when she died, but not that she’d given birth.”

Obi-Wan inclined his head, feeling an old pang of grief for the bright, vivacious woman who had believed so fiercely in democracy. “A fiction, to keep her twin children safe and hidden. She was injured, and far from any medical care more advanced than a med-droid. She lived long enough to name her children, but not to see them grow up.”

Luke’s jaw dropped. “I have a sister? Who is she? How do you know all of this?”

Leia’s eyes had narrowed slightly, the pieces sliding into place a little more quickly. There had been no keeping secrets from Padme, either. Obi-Wan shook himself out of the memories. “Bail and I were the only living beings present when she gave birth, and prepared her body for burial. Bail kept the secret to his grave, though I’m sure Breha suspected. With as powerful as the babies were, even as infants, we decided to separate them.”

Full realisation hit both of them at the same time, and the cacophony of emotions was almost as amusing as watching their father when something scandalised him. Shock, joy, a tinge of horror at misinterpreted warm feelings for each other, and a million half-formed questions all battling for dominance. That was familiar territory, at least. Obi-Wan settled back, recalling a thousand and one stories of the young, impetuous couple who thought they were being discreet and somehow remained oblivious to the GAR betting pool that revolved almost entirely around them. If any of the Clones were still alive, Obi-Wan stood to collect a lot of credits from those bets.

He tried not to grieve the memory of the men he had loved and fought beside. Even with the slightly-extended Mandalorian lifetime, the accelerated aging that the Council had never been able to command the Kaminoans to turn off would have killed them years ago. He refocused on the here and now, and the twins who had only just learned that they were twins. “I’m sure you have questions. I promise to answer them as well as I can.”

Lies and secrets and distrust had been Anakin’s downfall as much as Palpatine had. Obi-Wan didn’t intend to make the same mistake twice.

Chapter Text

Darth Vader was… irked.

This in itself was not an unusual state of affairs. Darth Vader was often irked, angry, enraged or displeased. What was unusual was that no-one had yet died as a result.

The Rebellion was proving annoyingly good at hiding, one step ahead of Vader and his crew, slightly smaller now that those who were loyal to Palpatine personally and disagreed with the decision to defect were gone.

Vader had even gone so far as to reach down the long-neglected bond with his old master, to ask for a parley. The bond was impossible to track through, unlike when they had been master and apprentice (there was a reason even the most immoral slavers wouldn’t touch a Padawan if their Master still breathed – the Master could find their apprentice even on the opposite side of the Galaxy, and Force help the one responsible for hurting them) but the mental equivalent of knocking on a closed, locked and barred door brought… results.

Darth Vader hadn’t been scolded like that since he was a Padawan and Obi-Wan had caught him sneaking back in after curfew, returning from an illegal swoop-bike race. He hadn’t known, even when he was Anakin and perpetually in trouble with someone, that his old master even could shout like that. Seriously, what happened to “A Jedi does not know anger”?

Immediately, he winced, regretting the thought as the bond twitched with the impression of someone taking a deep breath to continue a list of reasons why this Jedi was entirely justified in knowing anger, in detail and at volume. Vader hadn’t broadcast like that since he was a youngling. He doubted that it did much to add weight to his argument that Kenobi should at least hear him out.

The door opened, and Cody entered, removing his helmet and raising an eyebrow. “You look like you just came from a debriefing with the General after we had to pull your fat out of the fire during the war.”

Those ‘debriefings’ had usually been more along the lines of Kenobi trying to hammer into Vader’s head that orders were given for a reason, and Kenobi didn’t appreciate also needing half a dozen back-up plans for when then-Anakin wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

The High Council had tried assigning Ahsoka to him, but his Snips had not been the steady or rule-abiding influence that they had probably hoped. Anakin hadn’t appreciated it at the time, but they had both been incredibly lucky to have Obi-Wan with them as the quasi-responsible one, for all that Vader rarely listened to him.

Vader forced himself to focus on the moment and the clone in front of him, ignoring what sounded suspiciously like Kenobi laughing in the back of his mind. He blocked the bond. “Report, Commander.”

Cody had picked up far too many of ‘his’ Jedi’s eloquent facial expressions in their time together. “We’ve tracked the main Rebel force to the Hoth system. There are six planets, all with multiple moons, but only three planets are capable of supporting life.”

Vader hated frozen wastelands nearly as much as he loathed the sandy hell of desert planets like Tattooine. Kenobi had probably advised the location for exactly that reason.

Luke and Rey would be worth it. He had to keep that in mind.

Vader considered the options and decided that this was important enough to play safe. “We will start with the sixth planet and work our way in. None of the habitable planets are so large that we will miss them, and no matter how good their shielding is, they can’t hide from me once I’m planet-side.”

Cody saluted and left, the distinctive gold of the 212^th back on his armour after nearly two decades, something all the Clones had done as soon as the Executor was free of all those loyal to Palpatine. Vader would never admit it, but it was good to see signs of individuality, however subtle and discreet, appearing again.

It would take them a little over a day to get to Hoth at full speed. Vader would use the time to prepare what to say, both to his men beforehand and to his son when he saw him.

It took actually breaking atmosphere in a scout shuttle to find the faint echo of a Force-Sensitive presence on Hoth, the sixth planet from which the system drew it’s name, but that was enough. Vader stood in front of a holocam, transmitting orders to the assorted commanders, and to the Executor’s bridge. “Dead Rebels are of no use to me; I want them alive. Incapacitate them if you must, and do not un-necessarily risk yourselves, but a massacre will send the wrong message.”

The ground troops signed off, loading into their shuttles. Vader focussed his attention on Admiral Piett, who had replaced Orzzel after the former Admiral had proven that he valued imaginary future rewards over his immediate health and wellbeing. “Admiral, cease bombardment as soon as the shields are down. General Veers, keep your troops at a distance until we have stopped firing.”

Somewhere deep down, Vader wondered in Kenobi would be proud of him for finally learning the strategizing that his master had tried so hard to teach him. Given that it was now being used to track him down, he suspected that the answer would be a very firm ‘no’.

The plan had worked flawlessly, and Vader walked casually through the abandoned halls of the rebel base. The ones he was looking for hadn’t left yet, and the other Rebels were of little consequence to him.

His troops were so much more effective when they didn’t have Palpatine-loyal lackeys giving them orders and getting in the way.

They turned a corner and saw Obi-Wan standing in the middle of the corridor, lightsabre ignited. He looked… tired, weary to the bone in a way Vader had somehow never expected his old Master to be.

Obi-Wan had been calm, even dismissive, in the face of Sith, Dark Siders, droid armies and other odds that would make even the strongest person quail. Even the Arena on Geonosis had been met with little more than an annoyed glare at Anakin for adding himself and Padme into the situation. He had roamed the Death Star without flinching, and run around the galaxy causing chaos at Imperial facilities with every appearance of gleeful enjoyment.

When he saw the Clone Troopers, once more painted with the distinctive gold of the 212^th, blue of the 501^st, reds, greens and every other colour that Vader had gathered to himself over the years, that causal serenity was nowhere to be found. For the first time since Vader had known him, the famed Negotiator was lost for words. When Cody stepped forward, and wrist-comm raised to call off the attack, Obi-Wan screamed.

Screamed and fell to the ground, a torrent of Mando that Vader only half-understood spilling from his lips in a broken half-sob. The troopers must have understood, because they froze in place. Cody yanked off his helmet in what was technically still an active battle zone, looking nearly as stricken as Obi-Wan. “General, I – “

He paused at the sound of running footsteps and a child in some distress. Luke, carrying Rey and accompanied by the smuggler and the Princess, came flying around a corner and skidded to a halt upon seeing what awaited them. Luke shoved his daughter into the Princess’s arms and drew his – Anakin’s – lightsabre. “Go! We’ll catch up.”

Obi-Wan staggered to his feet, face grim and focussed in a way that a young Anakin Skywalker had misread as anger and disappointment, rather than an acknowledgement that his master was about to throw down with near-impossible odds to protect someone, usually his padawan or grandpadawan. At least someone had cared for his son, when Vader hadn’t known about him. For Luke, Obi-Wan would set aside everything, even his own life.

Luke didn’t waste time, blazing in the Force as he pulled down part of the roof as a barricade, grabbed Obi-Wan’s arm, and bolted.

For a moment, Vader was tempted to bring down the rest of the base, but thought better of it when Cody shook his head. “I placed squads above the hanger entrances. They’ll get visual on who they can and drop trackers on any ship that comes out.”

People tended to forget that Cody had been half the reason that the 212^th had been as terrifyingly competent as they were. Vader nodded, “When we return to the Executor, send the vode to their barracks for downtime and report to my cabin. It seems some of our tactics will need adjusting.”

Vader… wasn’t good with emotions.

He didn’t know what to say, to make Cody or the other clones feel better. How to help them like they deserved, to heal the devastation that came in the wake of proof that the dream they had clung to since the chips had failed… wasn’t real. That even if they found survivors of the Jedi they had loved, the reaction would not be one of forgiveness for something the clones had been forced into, but fear and terror.

Vader knew what it was like to see that in the eyes of someone dear to you. He still dreamed, some nights, of what could have been if he had run away with Padme when she asked, where Palpatine was dead and Luke had siblings, and Obi-Wan was there to teach him like he had Anakin… and then reality intruded, in the form of Padme’s funeral and an armoured suit and the knowledge that the Emperor would never willingly let him go.

Cody was in Vader’s quarters, staring blankly into the emptiness of spare through the viewport, and seeing none of it. Grief, despair, an old anger and hatred… the Dark Side sang with the pain that radiated through the ship. If he reached for it, Vader would be more powerful than he had ever dreamed, powerful enough to kill Sideous, to take the galaxy for his own, to bend everyone under the stars to his will…

But that was not what Cody needed now. Nor Luke, or Obi-Wan, or anyone else that Vader owed amends to. But Cody and the Clones, first.

The Commander looked up at him, eyes holding the empty blankness of too many Brothers who ate their blasters or held their Generals’ lightsabres too tight when they realised what they had done. “I should have expected it. The General was right to fear us.”

The Dark would be of no help here.

For the first time in over twenty years. Vader, once Anakin, reached for the Light, seeking help and guidance from the Force.

Chapter Text

The flight from Hoth to Cloud City, Bespin was… harrowing, to say the least.

Leia was glad that they arrived when they did, because she was starting to wish for a Lightsaber of her own to keep Han at a literal arms-length. Yes, he was different from the other men (and occasional women) that she had found physically attractive, but that didn’t mean she was going to jump into bed with a flyboy who’d been blatant about his aversion to being tied down.

Han wasn’t the most reliable person on the best of days, especially when it came to his interpretation of interpersonal relationships. Despite Han’s reassurances, Lando Calrissian did not look happy to see him. His attitude changed upon seeing Leia, greeting her with a courtly bow and a brush of his lips over her hand, but there was nothing about him that suggested anything more serious than a naturally flirtatious nature.

Leia had no doubt that he expressed similar flattery to every woman he came across, especially the ones in position to be a useful contact later. She smiled and replied with her own bland pleasantries, enjoying Han’s less-subtle-than-he-thought outrage, and followed him into the city.

Lando’s guarded posture dropped when a woman approached, descended from the people of Harun Kal, if Leia wasn’t mistaken. She carried two tiny bundles, dark-skinned infants perhaps a little younger than Rey. Lando kissed the sleeping infants on their foreheads and hugged the woman tightly. “I’ll see you soon.”

Han stared at Lando in blatant disbelief. “You settled down? You? That’s even more unbelievable than you turning respectable.”

Leia elbowed him, hard. She occasionally appreciated Han’s blunt way of talking, but now was not the time. “They’re adorable. My niece is about the same age. She’s napping on the ship, but if there is somewhere better here…”

Lando smiled at her, ignoring Han. “Of course. That was my wife, Jarrah, and our twins. By her people’s traditions, children aren’t officially named until their second birthday. They won’t mind if your niece borrows a bed and the nanny droid.”

It was a matter of minutes to transfer Rey to a more comfortable and secure bed than Han’s bunk, and Leia happily took Lando up on his offer of dinner. The rations available on the Falcon and most Rebel bases were sufficient, but not meant for long-term sustenance.

Everything was fine, until the door opened and revealed Vader sitting at the head of the table.

Han instantly went for his blaster. The trooper by Vader’s side was faster, firing a warning shot that forced the ex-smuggler to duck. Vader lifted a hand, and Han’s weapon flew out of his hand to rest on a sideboard.

Leia braced herself, but… something was different. Not safe, not by a long shot, but different. The Vader that sat at the end of the table was not the Vader who had overseen Leia’s interrogation on the Death Star.

Vader was dangerous, yes, no-one who had trained as a warrior for most of their life could be otherwise, but the danger wasn’t aimed at them. Likewise, the clone who accompanied him stood at ease, not in readiness to attack. Something very strange was going on here.

Vader’s next words confirmed it. “Don’t be foolish; I’m here to talk, not to pick a fight with you.”

Leia was very glad that Rey was safe with the nanny droid, and R2 and 3PO, for whatever the droids were worth in the way of defense. Leia didn’t trust Vader as far as she could throw him, but Lando wasn’t summoning the guards, and no back-up would be able to get to cloud city in time to save them. Their best – perhaps only – hope was to stall until an opportunity presented itself.

As gracefully as if she were at a State Dinner, Leia sat down, gesturing for Han and Chewie to follow suit. “What did you wish to discuss?”

Vader’s voice and expression were impossible to read. “I wish to defect to the rebellion.”

The clone trooper was probably the only one in the room who’s expression and body language didn’t scream shock. Even Leia, a Rebel operative in the Imperial Senate, couldn’t completely hide her disbelief. She forced her brain to reboot. On the one hand, kriffing Darth Vader wanted to defect to the Rebellion? On the other… even with Luke and Obi-Wan, the Emperor was a powerful Sith Lord and they needed all the help they could get. Getting the rest of Rebel Command on board would be a tough sell, but… Obi-Wan had told them the truth of who Vader had been, even if Leia’s mind refused to fully accept it. If she could get answers, real answers, to stem the haunted look in her twin’s eyes whenever he thought about it…

Han was less circumspect, spitting the mouthful of drink he had taken (likely to prove that he totally wasn’t intimidated by the looming Sith Lord inviting them to dinner) halfway down the table as Chewie roared in blatant disbelief. Leia didn’t need to speak Shiiriwook to know that there was likely to be a heavy sprinkling of profanity in the sound.

Somehow, she managed to compose herself. “Why? Why now, and why should we believe or trust you?”

The old Vader would have said something about how she didn’t have to believe, only obey. The dark figure merely let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like an aggravated sigh. “The Emperor has made it clear that he cares more about power than the good of the Galaxy, as he originally promised. I wish to be free of his control.”

Lando, who had been trying to remain inconspicuous (and out of Chewie’s immediate reach) off to the side, blinked incredulously. “What made you think that Palpatine ever had the good of the Galaxy in mind?”

Vader shrugged, “He was duly voted into power, and you never had to deal with the corruption of the Republic Senate. Should you continue to insist on a New Republic, Princess, I recommend firing everyone and starting from scratch.”

Leia’s adoptive father had said the same thing, as had Mon Mothma. Leia tried not to think too hard on that. “Why didn’t you reach out earlier? For that matter, why not talk to Obi-Wan? I know Force-users can speak mind-to-mind.”

The clone let out a noise that sounded a lot like a snigger. Vader pointedly ignored him. “Until recently, the Rebellion was more of a nuisance than an actual threat to be taken seriously. Obi-Wan… we didn’t get that far.”

Leia desperately wanted to know, and at the same time really didn’t. Her eyes flickered to the Clone Trooper, who willingly elaborated. “General Kenobi had a number of grievances to get off his chest first.”

Vader tossed a quick glare over his shoulder. “I don’t remember him being quite so eloquent since the last time a Senator complained about us not winning the war fast enough.”

Leia tried not to smile at the mental image of Obi-Wan lecturing Vader, and the Sith scuffing his feet like a scolded child in the face of parental disappointment. “Perhaps I’ll have better luck.”

When Luke arrived, Obi-Wan in a slightly better mental state close on his heels, Lando had commed Jarrah that it was safe to return, and Rey was giggling with Lando’s twins, rolling a ball between them with an accuracy that suggested the tiny brunette wasn’t the only Force-Sensitive among them.

That was something to concern herself with later, when she didn't have to worry about mediating the negotiations for Emperor Palpatine's most feared enforcer switching sides.

Chapter Text

Luke and Obi-Wan vanished to communicate with Luke’s mysterious other teacher, who arrived a day later, and turned out to be a tiny, ancient alien who gave lie to his frail appearance by throwing his walking stick at Vader’s shin, then beating him around the head with it. The Clone Commander apparently found this hilarious, glancing briefly at Obi-Wan before they both dissolved into sniggers. Everyone else found themselves ushered out while Vader was subjected to another lecture, before Master Yoda emerged an hour or so later to ask that they contact Rebel Command.

Convincing High Command that Vader was serious about defecting hadn’t been easy, but they had managed. Thanks to the information he brought with him, the Rebellion actually began to push back against the Empire. Everything was progressing well.

Which, of course, meant that it was time for Fate to deliver a drop-kick to the metaphorical balls.

Jabba the Hutt’s bounty hunters hadn’t stopped looking for Han, and finally Fett, one of the most notorious, had caught up with him. Leia wasn’t sure if Vader’s assurance that humans could survive being frozen in carbonite with minimal side effects was meant to be reassuring, but it wasn’t. Luke and Obi-Wan exchanged looks behind his back, suggesting that it probably was, before Obi-Wan steered his former apprentice away. “Come, we’ll mind little Rey while your children retrieve Captain Solo.”

Luke was never telling his father the fine details of how they infiltrated Jabba’s palace, retrieved Han, and killed the Hutt ganglord. He just hoped that Leia had the sense to hide the outfit Jabba had dressed her in before Vader, Obi-Wan, or anyone who reported to them saw it.

They stayed on Tattooine for a week, long enough for Han to heal, for Luke to activate the Freedom Trail to overthrow the slave-owners and de-chip the newly-freed slaves. Long enough for Leia to wrangle the various community leaders into a semblance of a functional government, and a few of Mon Mothma’s aides from the Outer Rim to show up and help implement it. Long enough for Tattooine to start calling itself a free world.

That they had freed the slaves, Luke did tell his father. (Skywalker was a slave name. Luke’s grandmother and Aunt Beru had both been freedwomen, and children followed the mother. It was a cruel irony that Palpatine had enslaved his father a second time, while promising him freedom.)

Through the Force, Luke could feel his father’s fierce pride in his children, warring with grief and shame that he hadn’t done it himself. Pride won out quickly enough, and Rey squealed and waved her hands in excitement from where she was half-hidden beneath Vader’s cape. The dark helmet tilted down to regard her through a blank faceplate. “Yes, you’re very proud too, aren’t you, my little Empress?”

Luke nearly choked. Surely his father couldn’t mean… “You can’t plan on handing control of the galaxy to an infant!”

Obi-Wan stifled laughter from where he still kept Vader under watch. Vader made a noise that could have been a haughty sniff. “Of course not, but she won’t be an infant forever.”

Luke didn’t want to press the issue, in case his father announced that he planned on making him and Leia Regents until Rey reached her majority. It was nice to see that the rest of the Alliance was warming up to the former Sith, though he had to resort to asking Kes Dameron before he got a straight answer as to why.

Little six-year-old Poe Dameron was already Kes’s constant shadow, when he wasn’t begging his mother and the other pilots to let him fly with them on patrols. Kes lifted Poe up on to his hip, with a dramatic groan of effort. “Well, it’s a little hard to be intimidated with Rey playing peek-a-book with his cloak or riding on his shoulders. Babies have good instincts, after all.”

Both of those things were hard to argue with, try as Luke might. “I still don’t want Rey getting any ideas of ruling the galaxy until she’s older. I’m not dealing with that much paperwork, no matter what Leia says.”

Kes and Wedge just laughed at him. “Your sister is the Princess and Junior Senator of Alderaan, and probably going to be Chancellor one day. Even if you start up a new Jedi Order, you can’t really think that you’re getting out of paperwork that easily.”

Luke briefly considered Force-pushing the both of them into the nearest fountain. “Let me dream.”

Poe and Rey both giggled, before Poe reached out to boop Rey on her button nose, flailing and nearly falling out of his father’s arms as he did so, which only made Rey laugh harder. “Daddy! Silly Poe!”

Poe affected an air of great dignity that fooled no-one. “Am not! I’m gonna be the best pilot in the galaxy!”

Luke and Kes exchanged the resigned glances common to parents of competitive children everywhere. Wedge nearly fell over laughing at them both, and only recovered when Leia almost tripped over him, coming to see what all the commotion was about.

The Emperor was dead, slain by Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, side by side in an echo of the unbeatable team they had once been. Luke had accompanied them, and bought back their bodies with the Emperor’s head.

Luke Skywalker: the last of the Jedi, and the first of a new Order.

Han and Lando had led an attack to blow up the still-in-progress Death Star Mk II, while Leia headed a raid to find and destroy any other planet-killing plans the Empire might have had. (She had nightmares for a month, and made sure to get the names of everyone who had worked on those projects. The Galaxy’s bounty hunters would be very busy for the next few months).

Han Solo: Hero of the rebellion and Captain of the Millenium Falcon, who helped destroy two Death Stars and saved the Galaxy.

Leia Organa-Solo: Last Princess of Alderaan, a leader of the Rebel Alliance, a politician worth admiring.

Their legends were built (as much as they all wished otherwise) and would likely endure long after they were gone.

Now, they faced the un-enviable task of building a New Republic to replace the corruption of the Empire.

Chapter Text

Perhaps hoping for peace had been too optimistic.

There were a lot of high-ranking Imperials who refused to give up their ideals, and even more ex-senators who were outraged when Leia revealed that there would be investigations before the Senate reformed. Leia would not be moved on that point, and dragged most of the Alliance's political figures with her. The Galactic Republic had fallen because of corruption, because of officials too focused on their own advancement to care about the common good. If not for corrupt officials who could be bribed to look the other way, the Rebels would have lost before Leia had been allowed out of the palace on her own!

No, in this she was resolute. Any senators who were found to have prioritised self-interest at the expense of the good of the people they served, who had knowingly engaged in corrupt practices, would be replaced.

The First Order began as whispers, disgruntled and dissatisfied people who formerly held power and wanted it back, finding a common cause and bending their money and influence toward that cause. Leia had been barely born when the Empire rose from the ashes of the Old Republic, but Bail Organa had taught her well, and made sure she knew how to recognise the signs.

The First Order might dwell in the shadows for now, but they wouldn’t stay there.

When the New Republic refused to hear her warnings, called her a warmonger for wanting to prosecute those who had committed war crimes, Imperial and Rebel alike, Leia realised that Palpatine and his empire had been only symptomatic of a rot that went to the heart of the Galaxy, that might take more than her lifetime to fix. 

The Galaxy was tired of a war that had gone on longer than many of them had been alive; the devastation of conflicts that lead to the Clone Wars, then the long years and bloodshed of that war, then the Rebellion vs the Empire. Leia understood the desire to put it all behind them, more than most of the Senators did, but she also knew that to let criminals go free, their crimes forgotten, was the New Republic setting themselves up for a new war that their children would have to fight.

The New Republic had been established for a year when Lando called, inconsolable and begging for help. 

He had flown to meet Jarrah’s ship… and found it a floating wreck, his wife dead, the nanny droid scrapped beyond even the finest mechanic’s ability to repair, and the twins missing. Han was by Leia’s side at the holo-projector in seconds. “Do you have any leads, buddy?”

Lando wiped furiously at his eyes. “Some, but they vanish almost as fast as they pop up. I need a faster ship than I have.”

Han and Leia barely had to glance at each other before Han nodded. “Send your co-ordinates. Chewie and I will be there as soon as we can.”

Leia agreed. “I’ll tell Luke, he can keep his ear to the ground and see if he can get a Force Vision. We’ll find them, Lando. No matter how long it takes.”

Leia didn’t begrudge Lando Han’s help with his tireless search.

How could she? She couldn’t imagine what it would be like if anything happened to her Ben. Obi-Wan and... Anakin - the mental switch was still a struggle, some days - had told Luke that the twins had not joined the Force, but other than the faint feeling of a nameless dread, had not been able to provide anything futher.

But being a single parent was hard, even before her true parentage was revealed and the Senate ‘suggested’ that she retire gracefully. No longer being part of the Senate didn't actually mean that there were less demands on her time.

She tried to word it gently, suggesting that Han and Lando visit between chasing leads, took the occasional break before burning themselves dry. Ben was displaying a stronger tendency toward tantrums, shouting that his father didn’t love him and no-one cared.

Han’s son needed him, too, as much as Lando’s did.

Frustrated, she called Luke, who had experience with being a mostly-single parent and did a perfectly good job with Rey, now coming up on her eighth birthday. Luke came over, pouring them both cups of caff as Leia poured out her problems to her twin.

It took longer than Leia expected, and she wound up crying on his shoulder before she was done. Luke stroked her hair. “Rey was an easy child, and I had a fantastic support group to help me through the hard bits. We haven’t supported you as we should.”

Leia sniffed, and showed him the holo-message she had received the previous day. Mon Mothma was sympathetic, but plainly stated that she couldn’t prevent it. She had never loved her twin more than when Luke looked prepared to storm the Senate and shout some sense into them. “We couldn’t keep it a secret forever, Luke. I just thought… I hoped that my own reputation would have convinced them that… nevermind.”

Luke sat down, then jumped up again. “Enfys. I need to warn her.”

Leia frowned. “You can use the holo-comm, but is it necessary? Whatever they think of us, Enfys is a known opponent of the Empire, and the daughter of an unquestioned Jedi.”

Luke shook his head. “They threw you out of the senate because of who your birth father was, in the face of all evidence, who our mother was, and the facts of who raised you. I’m leaving nothing to chance.”

He headed straight for the holo-comm console, but it lit up with an incoming call before he got there. Enfys appeared on the comm, her face pale under it’s dark tan. “Luke, we have people after us. Rey and I are going to ground, I’ll contact you when it’s safe.” 

It was a pre-recorded message, with no chance to reply. Luke’s legs shook, and Leia barely Force-threw a chair behind him before he collapsed. She placed a hand on his shoulder, all the comfort that she, or anyone, could give. “What will you do?”

Luke sighed, “Very publicly focus on my Academy, on training the next generation of Jedi. Refuse to talk about it and hope that it blows over. Enfys is even more capable than she generally lets on; she put on her mother’s mask at twelve, and kept her crew alive for over a decade. She’ll take care of them both. The best thing I can do to protect my daughter, until Enfys says otherwise, is to not look for her.”

Leia swallowed hard, her troubles with Ben suddenly seeming very small in comparison. “I’ll let Han and Lando know. Ask them to keep an eye out.”

She did, but there was no reply from the Falcon, and Leia feared the worst. When a reply did come, months later, it was from a random spaceport on Pasaana, with the news that they had lost the Falcon. Han would return, but he had to find a ship, first.

Leia could buy a ship, but she would need to take it there herself, and then focus on the beginnings of another Rebellion, to resist the First Order.

Even if everyone else was being wilfully blind to the facts, Leia could recognise the seeds being sown, the same tactics that that Palpatine had used to lay the foundations of the Empire. In the meantime, Ben was still raging about his father’s absence and that his mother only had time for him because she’d run out of important things to do. For her own sanity – Leia was honest enough to admit that she did have some Vader within her, too – Leia needed a break from her temperamental offspring.

Luke was focussing on his students, and Leia had been putting off Ben’s training in the Force. At the very least, her son deserved some training before he faced the choice of whether or not he wanted to follow that path.

Perhaps Luke's new temple, away from the hubbub of living in the New Galactic Capitol on Hosnia, coupled with the peace of being among peers and equals, rather than constantly the centre of attention, would steady her tumultuous son.

Lando was even worse than Leia had predicted, his loss leaving him a man on the verge of shattering, and the long years of fruitless searching hadn’t helped. Leia sent Han to familiarise himself with the ship and sat down with Lando, an arm around his shoulder. Han was a dependable friend, but not fantastic when it came to talking about feelings.

Lando took a deep, shuddering breath and leaned his head on her shoulder. Leia could feel the fabric growing wet with tears. “We were going to Harun Kal, for their naming ceremony. Anyone who would steal children, Force-Sensitive or not… Finn and Jannah won’t grow up with names, not true ones. If they die, Jarrah won’t even be able to find them in the Force, because to lack a name is to lack the core of your identity. I know their names in my heart, but my children will never hear them spoken.”

Breha Organa had known Leia’s name before Bail had ever said it to her. Leia might not be a full Jedi, but the Force still whispered to her: one day, Lando’s children would know their names. Perhaps not for many years, even not until adulthood, but they would know them.

Despite that, Leia knew that anything she said would be cold comfort to the grieving man, and didn’t bother. “You’ll keep searching, then?”

Lando nodded. “I’ll set up something semi-permanent here. A lot of information passes through, and it’s a short hop to most of the news hubs of the Outer Rim. Even Wild Space, sometimes. I’m sorry, but I can’t go back like nothing’s happened.”

Leia nodded. "I'll visit when I can, between setting up the Resistance and helping Ben get a grip on himself. If you ever feel ready, there will be a place for you by our sides. Always."

Chapter Text

Luke missed his daughter as though she were a newly-severed limb.

There were moments when he turned around to show her something – Rey had already demonstrated a knack for healing, and some affinity for green and growing things – only to remember that she was no longer there. His little girl was somewhere in the universe, hidden from him, and his only consolation was that wherever Rey and Enfys were, Rey was safe.

Ben was quite another story.

Luke had been raised as a moisture farmer, and the majority of his students had known that they had to keep their abilities secret, under the empire. If anything, they’d had too little confidence in themselves. Now, for the first time, he was realising what Obi-Wan and Yoda had meant when they said that arrogance was dangerous.

Ben had access, through Leia, to all the scattered Jedi Holocrons and datachips Luke had found, while he was trying to piece together a basic idea of how to train future generations of Jedi, and Leia had been supportive of her son’s efforts to study them. That meant he was ahead of his peers, many of whom struggled with traumatic flashbacks when they reached for the Force that should have been their greatest comfort. Luke hoped that Ben would respond by helping them work past that trauma, showing them what the Force could be. Instead, he had a tendency to hold himself aloof, a superior attitude that was nothing like Leia, and left him struggling to be included socially.

He wasn’t the only student with such an attitude, and the few friends Ben was making resembled more a gang of bullies than a positive influence.

Only that morning, Ben’s sparring partner had needed medical attention after their match, and Ben’s complete lack of regret or remorse had been disturbing. Luke tried not to think of another angry, arrogant protegee in his family who thought he deserved more, but the parallels were hard to ignore. The only real difference between Luke’s father and nephew was that Ben had grown up privileged and secure in the family that loved him.

Luke was running out of reasons not to send Ben home in disgrace. Ben was his nephew, but didn’t seem very suited to the life of a Jedi. Luke didn’t want to send him away, when the young man was already struggling with feelings of rejection, but it wasn’t fair to make an exception for him, and Ben was not the only student who needed Luke’s attention.

That was a puzzle for the morning, perhaps. For now, Luke would simply have to keep a close eye on him.

A surge of pure Darkness woke him, and Luke barely stopped to summon his lightsaber as he ran toward Ben’s room, where the darkness originated. Throughout the dormitories, others were waking, confused and afraid. Luke could see no enemy, but the Force screamed Danger, and he took up a defensive stance over Ben’s bed.

His only warning was the hiss of an igniting lightsaber.

Ben and his friends were gone. Many of his students were slaughtered, a scattered handful of survivors only spared because of their talent for hiding themselves deep within the Force.

Trying not to weep at the destruction of all that had held him together after the loss of Rey, Luke forced himself to think. He reached out, careful and subtle… Ben was with the First Order, proudly reporting to Supreme Leader Snoke.

Rage was of the Dark Side, no matter how much the little snot might deserve it… Focus. Luke turned to his remaining students. “We will rise again, but not now. For the moment, the First Order will be looking for Force Users. My sister is gathering people to stand against them, if you wish to join her. If not… hide. Hide and watch, and wait.”

Eeva Koth, a Zabrak woman, tears and ash outlining her face like tattoos, wiped at her eyes. “What will you be doing, Master?”

Luke smiled, sad and bitter. “I’ll be laying a number of false trails, and keeping the First Order distracted.”

His father and the clones had been in possession of any number of tales about how Obi-Wan had eclipsed even Master Yoda on the Emperor’s list of people he wanted dead, and stayed there for more than two decades. Obi-Wan had laughed at them, then taken Luke aside for a more detailed explanation. Leia needed time to build the Resistance into a force that could withstand the First Order, even if the New Republic fell.

If he could do nothing else, Luke could give her that time.

Rey had no memories of a time before Jakku.

In her dreams, she sometimes remembered a ship, flying away. Occasionally, she saw glimpses of faces, mostly children with a few adults scattered in. A boy, some years older than her, with the hum of a ship’s engine in his laugh. Twins, a boy and a girl, warm and open and kind. A blond man who felt like home and family, and a woman, as dark-haired as Rey, with something similar in their faces. A masked figure and a tall, sandy-haired man, both dressed like spacers.

In her nightmares, Rey was being pursued by something she could not name, anger and fear and jealousy seeking her destruction.

There were no seasons on Jakku, so Rey marked the days on the wall of the destroyed AT-AT Walker that she called her shelter. She scavenged for parts that she traded for rations and water, and for the limited edibles that grew in the endless desert, when that was not enough. Some she kept, like bedding supplies and the occasional energy pack.

Like a flight simulator helmet, for when her family came back for her and they flew away from this sandy hell-hole. A staff from a combat training droid and a data pad on how to use it (the droid had kept her fed for a month). Rey learned to fight, to defend herself and her belongings from all comers, as though her life depended on it.

On Jakku, youth was no guarantee of safety or mercy.

Years passed, and Rey grew in skill and body. A blessing, because now the other scavengers saw her not as a child to be mocked, but a challenger.

Rey never let down her guard, and prayed to the power that she sometimes felt, just out of reach, that her family would come soon.

FN-2187 grew up knowing that something was missing.

He just never knew what, only that it was important. He accepted Sanitation duty without a murmur of complaint, scouring every inch of first his training centre, and then Starkiller Base for a clue, a hint, even a feeling, of what it might be. He trained as hard as he could, becoming squadron leader and earning some of the best scores on record, until he was sent on allowed on off-world patrols, still seeking what it was he had lost.

On one of those patrols, he witnessed another squad massacre a village, and everything inside him recoiled, knowing to his core that it was wrong.

When FN-2187 was finally chosen to lead his squad on a mission, accompanying Lord Kylo Ren, FN-2187 felt like something was building, a crescendo leading to a climax, a choice that would change everything.

All FN-2187 could do was try to be ready when it came.

When Leia had reached out to her old Rebellion contacts, Poe Dameron had resigned from the New Republic military and followed her in a heartbeat.

He was just barely old enough to remember the Rebellion – and a little girl he had played starfighter pilots with – but if the First Order was anything like the Empire, they had to be stopped. Poe was a pilot beyond compare, if he did say so himself, and quickly advanced through the ranks. He flew missions, both open raids on First Order bases, and occasional space battles and dogfights.

Rarely, General Organa sent him on undercover jobs, where she could make the best use of his charm and handsome face to gather information or sow discord. Poe flattered himself that he had a decent success rate. (Though the less said about the mission where a bit of flirting led to six First Order officers literally came to blows over him, the better.)

Poe was undercover with a gang of Spice smugglers on lawless Kimiji, who he normally would have stayed far away from, had they not also been the focal point of what passed for local opposition to the First Order.

He regretted leaving them in the lurch when General Organa commed him, telling Poe to drop everything and get to Jakku, a desert planet in the Western Outer Reaches, but the General wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important. There was a small community there, and a man, Sor Lan Tekka, who had vital information.

Poe’s instincts told him that this was the most important mission of his life, so he pushed regret aside, and told BB-8 to fire up his X-wing.

Chapter Text

The Mission to Jakku only reinforced what FN-2187 already knew: he would not be a part of what the First Order stood for.

He’d known this for a while, some sixth sense whispering ‘wrong, wrong, wrong’, an instinct that he’d never managed to fully block out. Stormtroopers were supposed to follow orders above all else, but that instinct had never steered him wrong yet. Now, it was shouting that he had to leave.

FN-2187 was leaving people behind, he knew. His squadmates – minus poor Slip, now, discarded like so much trash – were only the start. He was abandoning the younger troopers, the ones who needed someone to show them what to do and how to avoid drawing the attention of the Officers, the way FN-2187 managed to slow the pace just enough that they were at least a corridor away from Kylo Ren’s rages, but not so much that his squad could be punished for slacking.

The… other presence… another thing that had been with him all his life, but that he could never quite place. That was the hardest thing, to leave that presence behind, but it had faded with distance a week earlier, like it had a few times before, when FN-2187 went on an off-base mission or patrol. No, FN-2187 had to leave, and it had to be now.

For that, he needed a pilot.

Something was coming.

Rey didn’t know what, precisely, but she knew that it was. She felt it as she scavenged through what had once been an Imperial Star Destroyer, now half-buried in the desert sands. It tugged at the back of her mind as she scrubbed at the fruits of her day’s work, and almost drowned out the growling of her stomach while she hoped that Ungar Plutt would give her a fair price for them.

He wouldn’t, he never gave anyone a fair price, secure that those who depended on him for the bulk of their rations would take what he gave rather than risk going hungry. It wasn’t as though Rey had anyone else to sell to, not without travelling distances that only a droid could manage without food or water, or the Sinking Fields that no-one dared venture near.

It wasn’t until Rey had carefully finished fitting a new power pack into her simulator helmet and settled outside her AT-AT hut, enjoying the brief twilight before the freezing chill of the night set in, that something out of the ordinary finally happened.

The sun had nearly set when her senses sung joyfully, a chorus that hinted at home and family… and turned out to be a dirty BB droid, orange markings the only thing distinguishing it from the white sands that stretched everywhere. The fact that it was in a net, Teedo trying to poach on her territory again did not improve Rey’s mood, anger and bitter disappointment threatening to swamp and drown her.

She let the droid follow her home anyway.

Poe Dameron had been expecting interrogation, could only hope to hold out long enough for the Resistance to send someone to pick up BB-8 when he didn’t return within the expected timeframe.

He wasn’t sure that he’d managed as well as he hoped. Or, he had, until Kylo Ren took over the process. His head pounded, his brain felt like a nexu had raked its claws through his mind, leaving it scarred and bleeding in the wake of the scumbag’s questioning. Poe could only be thankful that Leia was careful not to tell those on risky missions more than they needed to know.

His heart sunk to his boots and dribbled out through his toenails when a stormtrooper came to escort him to Kylo Ren, only to soar back to the stars when they pulled off their helmet – and really, a stormtrooper had no business being that good looking! Or helping Poe escape at all, if it came down to that, but Poe would take his blessings where he could get them. Especially when strangely familiar eyes looked at him, burning with a desperate fire. “Can you fly a TIE fighter.”

A little of Poe’s old cockiness crept back in, “I can fly anything.” He’d happily fly that dark, no doubt muscular body anywhere, but Poe should probably make sure he wasn’t a spy before he started considering the potential of the nearest flat surfaces. “Why are you helping me?”

The stormtrooper stared at him with confidence and complete surety. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

Totally a front. That was actually reassuring, and Poe felt his lips quirk in an almost flirty half-grin. “You need a pilot.”

The stormtrooper grimaced and nodded. “I need a pilot.”

Good enough for Poe. “We’re gonna do this.”

FN-2187 was trying very hard not to panic.

It was one thing to plan to escape the First Order, but now he had busted out a very high profile prisoner, and they were in a stolen First Order TIE fighter, and somehow everything was far more real. He tried to ground himself, focussing on the pilot’s voice. “Can you shoot?”

FN-2187 had never been inside a TIE fighter before in his life. “Blasters I can.”

He could feel the pilot cringe and then mentally shrug. “Ok. Same principle. Use the toggle on the left to switch between missiles, cannons and mag-pulse. Use the sight on the right to aim, triggers to fire.”

How was that the same as the ‘point-and-shoot’ principle of a blaster? Toggle, sight… at least the trigger was familiar. “This is very complicated.”

The pilot didn’t dignify that with a response. The engines thrummed, the TIE took off… and was pulled up short by the fuel line. They tried again, and FN-2187 knew the moment the bridge started paying attention to an unauthorised departure.

Stormtroopers started setting up ground-to-air missiles, laying covering fire. FN-2187 aimed for the storage containers they were using as cover, at the other TIE fighters, random things around the hanger bay… anything that would make them fall back to defend their other resources, rather than having to shoot at the troopers who had no more choice than he had.

Shooting at the Bridge was entirely deliberate.

A triumphant shout from behind him, and they were breaking free, shooting toward the open hanger door and freedom. FN-2187 cringed and roared in equal parts as he destroyed the Finaliser’s ventral cannons, and a much smaller part of him thrilled at the pilot’s indignation at the First Order’s reducing him to a number.

The pilot had an extremely colourful vocabulary, even if he probably hadn’t meant FN-2187 to hear the odd, whispering tone. “Well, I ain’t using it. F-N, huh? Finn, I’m gonna call you Finn!”

Finn… something about it seemed right, and FN – Finn – let the name settle into his bones, a part of him that he hadn’t known was missing clicking into place, a connection long dormant humming to life. ”Finn, yeah, I like that.”

The emotions that flashed through the pilot were unfamiliar to Finn, but they felt nice, and he basked in them for a moment, before his new companion spoke again. “I’m Poe Dameron.”

A name was better than calling him ‘the pilot’. “I’m glad to meet you, Poe.”

Which was, of course, when everything went to kriff.

Chapter Text

Finn didn’t quite wish that he had never left the First Order, but he seriously considered wishing that they’d just shot him on the mission to Jakku.

Dying quickly had to be better than the sandy hell of wandering in an endless desert, knowing that Poe, his first real friend, was dead.

First thing first: water, and shelter. He’d already shed his stormtrooper armour; the risk of running across someone willing to take their frustration out on a ‘trooper was greater than the protection that it offered, and the less he had to carry, the better. Poe’s jacket – all that was left of him – added an extra layer, but it would come in handy when night fell, and he stood out less in it.

Now, where to go? If Finn squinted, he could make out the tip of a downed star-cruiser on the other side of a ridge. The cruiser would have been long since abandoned, stripped bare of anything valuable, but that wasn’t why Finn set off toward it.

Jakku was populated by scavengers trying to earn enough to get off the wretched dustball, and a few scattered religious communities, most escaping persecution, some in the daft belief that suffering brought them closer to whatever sadist they worshipped. (It certainly brought them to their god sooner; the harsh climate and limited resources were not conductive to a high average lifespan.) Scavenger settlements were likely to spring up where there were things to scavange, and it wasn’t as though he had a better idea of where to go.

Sure enough, Finn only had to walk for another hour or so, trying to convince himself that survival training had been worse, before he stumbled across a scavenger riding some kind of beast, nets holding a random assortment of technical parts slung across his back.

The jump would be difficult, but with a running start, Finn should be able to grab onto the net, at least. Drawing on whatever strength he had left, he ran, leaped… and landed lightly on the beast’s rump, directly behind the rider. Too focussed on scanning the landscape for other dangers, the scavenger never turned around, and Finn settled in for the ride.

The settlement, when they finally reached it, consisted of a junkyard and a collection of tents, perhaps a bartering station of sorts, set up around… yes, a well or watering hole of some kind!

Stumbling off the animal, Finn dunked his entire head in, hoping to lower his body temperature a little. Lifting his upper body out again, he ran his tongue over his lips. The water didn’t taste good, or mineral-rich as some of the planets he’d been on, but it didn’t seem rancid or contaminated, either. Besides, the animals were drinking without care, and if he didn’t drink soon, Finn wouldn’t be alive to worry about any ill effects.

Finally slaking his overwhelming thirst, Finn looked around properly, trying to work out the source of the feeling that pulled at him.

The sound of shouting drew not just Finn’s attention, but everyone else’s, too. A girl, a young woman, familiar even though Finn was sure he’d remember having met someone like her, fighting off a few humanoids who looked like the average enforcer types. She looked perfectly able to take care of herself, but Finn’s attention was drawn to what she protected: a small BB droid, white with orange markings.

“BB-8…”

Well, there were worse ways to introduce yourself than getting into a fight together. Finn ran toward the struggle, sparing a moment to admire the clearly self-taught staff technique. “Hey!”

Then the droid was squealing angrily, and the girl was running toward him, somehow looking even angrier than when the thugs were trying to steal her property. Instinct kicked in, and he bolted for a less confined space. Then his current run of bad luck kicked in, and a staff came out of nowhere.

Unkar Plutt’s thugs weren’t the first time Rey had fought multiple opponents, just the latest and most annoying.

She’d barely sent them running or into a state of unconsciousness when BB-8 started squealing in outrage. A stranger, wearing his pilot’s jacket, and watching them! The little droid had some very firm ideas of what to do with the stranger/potential spy/danger, but Rey calmed it down. They needed information more than revenge. “What’s your hurry, thief?”

To his credit, it was a rare person who got knocked flat by an angry Rey and didn’t immediately spill everything they knew. “What? Thief?”

He was either genuinely confused, or an excellent liar. BB-8 zapped him crossly, and Rey didn’t remove her staff. “The jacket. This droid says that you stole it.”

He stared blankly, and Rey was inclined to believe that he at least had no malicious intent. “I’ve had a pretty messed-up day, all right? I’d appreciate it if you stopped accusing me of – OW! Stop it!”

BB-8 zapped him again. He did look confused and a little beat-up, but Jakku was not a planet that inspired ready trust or unthinking compassion. “Where did you get it? It belongs to his master.”

BB-8 wasn’t a bad droid, but it had a decided tendency to attract trouble, something that no scavenger could avoid for long. The faster BB-8 was back with it’s master, the better. The stranger sighed, a tired grief in his body language. “It belonged to Poe Dameron.”

He looked directly at the droid. “That was his name, right?” BB-8 cooed in affirmation, and the stranger continued. “He was captured by the First Order. I helped him escape, but our ship crashed.”

Rey couldn’t help raising an impressed eyebrow. Even on Jakku, the back end of nowhere, they had heard of the First Order, and how dangerous it was to defy them. Whatever else the man was, he was brave. He swallowed hard. “Poe didn’t make it.”

BB-8 keened softly, and the man looked torn between reaching out and not wanting to get zapped again. “I tried to help him. I’m sorry.”

BB-8 rolled away, and Rey relaxed. “So, you’re with the Resistance?”

He looked up at her, clearly weighing his odds, then nodded decisively. “Obviously. Yes, I’m with the Resistance.”

More likely, he’d been a silent ally, or perhaps an informant who’d spent a very long time denying the Resistance to anyone who asked. But by freeing Poe, he’d thrown his lot in irrevocably with the Resistance, and there was no going back. Rey could respect that. “I’ve never met a Resistance Fighter before.”

She risked a smile, something that, among the majority of scavengers, would invite nothing but trouble. He returned it hesitantly, and Rey felt a warm flutter in her belly. She re-focused on her new acquaintance. “Well, you have now. Most of them look more like Poe, the dashing flyboy type, but we come in all types.”

Rey nearly giggled. Was this flirting, like in the clandestine holonovel she’d found? She checked to make sure BB-8 hadn’t run into more trouble. “BB-8 says he’s on a secret mission. He has to get back to your base.”

The Resistance Fighter closed his eyes briefly. “Apparently, he has a map that leads to Luke Skywalker, and everyone is after it.”

The name made that feeling of home and family flare up, and perhaps that was why BB-8 had felt familiar last night. Did the famous, fabled Jedi know where her family had gone, or at least who they were? “Luke Skywalker?”

The moment was broken when BB-8 skidded back, calling an urgent warning. Rey felt all of her good feelings vanish in the face of long-honed survival instincts. “What?”

At the outskirts of the market, two First Order stormtroopers were asking questions. Rey’s heart fell to her boots when one of Unkar’s thugs pointed in their direction. The Resistance Fighter grabbed her hand, and Rey started at the unfamiliar feeling of touch that didn’t threaten harm as he started to pull her away, just as the stormtroopers started shooting. “We have to go. Come on, BB-8!”

It wasn’t Rey’s first time dodging blaster fire, either. “I know how to run without you holding my hand!”

She wasn’t used to being touched, and now was not the time for distractions! “BB-8, stay close! This way!”

The market descended into chaos around them, and the Resistance Fighter – she really needed to get his name – dragged her into a tent. Rey tried not to panic, knowing that she was in over her head. “They’re shooting at both of us!”

The Resistance Fighter nodded, searching through the meager items scattered around. “Yes, they saw you with me. You’re marked, now.”

Rey couldn’t help scowling. “Well, thanks for that!”

He glared over his shoulder, “Hey, I’m not the one who chased you down with a staff! Does anyone have something resembling a blaster around here?”

Rey crouched down by BB-8, the risk to the little droid so much more real, and more important than she could have dreamed. “Are you all right?”

BB-8 chirped, before the Resistance Fighter shushed them both. Rey listened, and heard the faint but familiar sound of ion engines. He grabbed her hand again, ignoring her instinctive protest, and they got out of the tent seconds before it was blown up. She panicked for a moment when she saw him lying flat and still, but he groaned and propped himself upright. “Are you ok?”

Rey blinked – when was the last time that her safety and well-being had been anyone’s first thought? She pulled herself together. “Yes, follow me.”

They couldn’t stay in Niima Outpost, not with everyone from thugs to the First Order attacking them. Luckily, Unkar Plutt was a junkyard dealer. The Resistance Fighter managed to keep pace with her – a mildly impressive feat in it’s own right – “We can’t outrun them!”

Rey tried very hard not to think about that, or about all the other things that could go wrong. “We might in that quad-jumper!”

She could feel his incredulity. “We need a pilot!”

Perhaps that was how he’d met Poe; BB-8 had a lot to say about the man’s skill in an X-Wing. “We have one!”

Well, part of one. She’d never flown a ship herself, but she’d spent hours in the flight simulator helmet, and every pilot had a first flight. She wasn’t insulted by the Resistance Fighter’s surprise. “You? What about that ship?”

The other ship was closer, but it was as much a random collection of parts as anything useful. Besides, they were nearly at the quad-jumper. “That ship’s garbage!”

The quad-jumper exploded under a First Order missile, and Rey re-evaluated their options. “The garbage will do!”

It didn’t have to carry them far, just far enough. Besides, it’s cannons were a far better defence than anything they had right now.

The walls were dirty and stained from years of sitting in a desert, and Rey didn’t even want to think of the amount of cleaning that was going to be involved before it was habitable. Still, the layout was familiar. She pointed down a side passage. “The gunner position is down there!”

His voice was muffled as she headed for the cockpit. “You ever fly this thing?”

His opinion of the ship was probably about as high as hers. “No, this ship hasn’t flown in years!”

If Rey had a ship, she would have kept it in better condition. There was no time to do a proper pre-flight check, but everything seemed functional. Her hands flew, flipping switches and pressing buttons. “I can do this, I can do this…”

There was very little room for a proper take-off, but Rey couldn’t force herself to feel too bad for wrecking Unkar Plutt’s scrapyard as she tried to take off, misjudging the space around her a few times. She headed straight for atmosphere, only for the Resistance Fighter’s voice to ring out from the gunner station. “Stay low! Stay low, it confuses their tracking!”

That was helpful. TIE fighters were already screaming after them, and Rey would take what she could get.

Poe had managed to eject Finn when the TIE was hit, and then himself.

The impact with the ground knocked him unconscious, he didn’t know for how long, and when he woke up, there was no sign of the TIE, or of Finn. Had one of their parachutes malfunctioned? Had a wind swept him away? The place he landed was surrounded by ridges, but he had no idea of where the TIE might have landed, or if Finn had even survived. There wasn’t even the tell-tale smoke of a crash.

It was a cruel thought, that Finn might have saved his life and his sanity, only to die just as he escaped the First Order that had enslaved him. Poe wanted to cry, but there was no time for despair. Instead, he promised himself that the Resistance would know, and that Poe would try to persuade any future captured stormtroopers that there was another way.

He had given the tracker that would have let him locate BB-8 to the little droid when it looked like capture was inevitable; no need to make it easy for the First Order. The Resistance had the other tracker, and Poe had an organic implant that would alert General Organa of his location and the need for an extraction. It had been expensive, and General Organa had paid out of her own pocket, but the Resistance had been small enough at the time that the expense had been considered worth it for anyone who knew enough for a hasty extraction to be worth the risk.

It didn’t take long for General Organa to arrive, along with Poe’s squadron. The General took one look at him and banned him from getting in an X-wing until he’d debriefed, had a nap, and let her help rebuild his mental shields. Poe couldn’t deny that it was probably a good idea. “Thank you.”

She led him onto her shuttle and into relative privacy. “You’re hurting, dear. Worse than physically, or even the mental interrogation that Dark Siders are capable of. If you ever need to talk…”

The General had been a sort of second mother to Poe, ever since Sharia Bey-Dameron had died. Poe liked to think he was better at being a pseudo-son than Kylo Ren was, though he’d never betray General Organa’s trust by saying so aloud. Instead, he let his emotions well up, and burst into tears.

She wrapped her arms around him, rocking him gently and making soothing noises. Poe closed his eyes and let everything pour out. The feeling of failure that warred with the awareness of how his mind had been violated; Finn, the stormtrooper who had saved him and died; the loss of BB-8, his oldest friend and companion, after Luke’s daughter and Lando’s twins had vanished.

Finally, he was utterly spent, and Leia smoothed his hair and guided him to the small cot. “Rest, Poe. I’ll check on the search for BB-8, and see what we can do about remembrance for Finn.”

The next thing Poe knew, he was being shaken awake by Leia’s red-haired temporary aide. “Come to the bridge, quickly.”

Poe’s head hurt a lot less, as did his prior injuries, and he mentally thanked Leia for whatever she’d managed to heal while he was unconscious as he followed the aide – Kaydel Connix, that was her name!

Leia looked serious, but not overly concerned. “We’ve lost the trace, BB-8 escaped on a ship, presumably with help.”

She tapped something on the dashboard, and a very familiar ship filled the screen. Poe tried not to squeal like an excited schoolgirl at the sight of the Millennium Falcon fleeing First Order pursuit. Leia’s arch look said that he wasn’t fooling anyone, but she was kind enough not to comment. “We’ve sent out word to our spies at all Resistance-friendly ports. When it lands for repairs, we’ll know, so everyone stay alert and ready for action.”

A communications officer frowned. “How do you know the Falcon won’t head to our base.”

Leia rolled her eyes. “The day that ship doesn’t need to land for repairs, especially after so long in a junkyard, is the day I retire.”

The comm chimed with a message from Takodana, and Leia resumed the mantle of General Organa, glancing at Poe. “If you’re up for it, go find your X-Wing. I doubt we’re the only ones keeping an eye out for BB-8, or the Falcon.”

Chapter Text

Han was conflicted.

On the one hand, he had the Falcon back, torn between flying to Leia’s side and flying into the stars, away from the pain. He was home, after all these years running jobs for smugglers to search for his ship, as if having it back would return everything to the way it was before everything went wrong. The ship held so many memories of the love between him and Leia, and their son, their Ben, had loved the Falcon, waiting eagerly until he was tall enough to fly it himself.

Han knew that the promise of being allowed to fly his father’s ship wouldn’t bring Ben back, but Han had never had the power to dismiss even his most hopeless dreams.

On the other hand, he had two new young people. One with the bright smile that Leia said reminded her of her mother, Padme, and the triple hair-buns that Luke’s daughter had loved and worn religiously since the day her beloved Aunt had fashioned her hair into the Alderaanian style. Definitely Force-Sensitive; there was no other way a young child alone could have survived Jakku.

The other fugitive had eyes that crinkled like Lando’s when he smiled, the same bravado in the face of fear and the same indignant tone whenever he disagreed with Han, though the build and the steady air was all Jarrah’s. He wasn’t with the Resistance, whatever the girl claimed, or at least hadn’t been for long. Leia would have made him collect Lando from wherever he was now as soon as she met the kid, no matter where Han was or what he was doing at the time.

But it was all speculation. Han didn’t have any blood-tests onboard, and he knew that nothing would make the two clam up faster than questioning them about their past, if they even remembered it. Little Finn had been no more than two when he was stolen, after all, and it would be a miracle if he knew of his twin sister’s fate, much less her location.

Takodana. If there was anyone who would know about the two familiar strangers, it would be Maz. Besides, the Falcon needed a few quick repairs before Han took it to whatever remote planet the Resistance was currently on.

Rey wanted to be back on Jakku now, and not just because she’d promised to wait until someone came for her!

Ranthars, more people shooting at her, however many times she’d nearly died in just the past few hours… Rey was so very done with all of it!

Perhaps Finn would be willing to come with her. Once they delivered BB-8 to the Resistance, anyway. He had a gentle soul, for all that he was good in a fight, and while Jakku wasn’t an easy place to live, company would make it easier. At least on Jakku no-one was trying to kill them. Unkar Plutt might look the other way for scavengers bullying and stealing from each other, but severely injuring or killing another scavenger merited a harsh punishment. Unkar did not tolerate anything that cut into his profits.

She followed Han out of the cockpit, to where the Wookie, Chewbacca, was complaining about his injury, and Finn was very pointedly keeping as much distance as possible between them.

BB-8 projected the map, and Rey felt the feeling of home sing out again, a quiet hymn that soothed her frayed nerves. But the map was incomplete. Han sighed, “Ever since Luke disappeared, people have been looking for him.”

“Why did he leave?” Rey almost started when she realised the question came from her. She felt lost, vulnerable, and she had no idea why. The question was important, but why was it so important to her? Nothing made sense anymore.

Han refused to meet their eyes, even as Finn reached out to touch her hand. “He was training a new generation of Jedi. One, an apprentice, turned against him and destroyed it all. Luke left; perhaps he felt responsible.”

Finn’s voice was equally soft. “Do you know what happened to him?”

Han continued to try to stare at the star map, looking for anything familiar. “There were rumours. Those that knew him best said that he went looking for the First Temple of the Jedi.”

That sang of rightness and familiarity, too, and Rey sank into herself, trying to remember anything that might explain why, as Han continued talking. The knowledge was almost there, on the edge of her consciousness, but there was something blocking it. She only snapped back to the present when something started beeping, and then they were coming out of hyperspace, and Rey was staring at the greenest planet she ever remembered seeing. “I didn’t know there was this much green in the whole galaxy.”

Finn couldn’t remember the last time he had been under this much stress.

First the whole mess with the Falcon getting captured, admittedly by its rightful owners, and the mind-numbing terror that came with thinking they had been caught by the First Order. then the even bigger mess with the gangs and the Ranthars. Then the Wookie nearly killed him, and now Han couldn’t even be persuaded to answer the basic question of whether or not there were likely to be First Order sympathisers in this smuggler’s den.

It wasn’t like he had lied to Rey. He’d thrown in with the Resistance the second he freed Poe, and as the first (known) defecting Stormtrooper, he would be a big deal when the Resistance found out about him. He wasn’t concerned about Rey being angry, at least not as much as he feared being captured again.

Finn had heard the rumours, mostly officers from General Hux down cursing Maz Kanata’s name. She wouldn’t take sides, sticking to her own moral code to determine who she helped. But she offered a haven to all comers, and gods help anyone who picked anything larger than a bar brawl in her territory.

It spoke well of their chances of getting BB-8 to the Resistance, but didn’t necessarily preclude that there wouldn’t be First Order spies or sympathisers lurking around.

Finn wanted to carry out Poe’s mission, he truly did. He wanted to stay and help Rey find what she was looking for. But Finn had also seen what the First Order did to those they deemed Traitors, and he very much did not want to be on the receiving end. The target on his back grew with every hour he was free, with every rumour among the other Stormtroopers of FN-2187, who freed himself from the First Order’s control.

Kylo Ren might deem him insignificant, but General Hux and every other officer who had anything to do with the Stormtrooper program couldn’t afford to let him live. As long as Finn was free, he was a threat, almost as big a one as Luke Skywalker. For the sake of Rey, and BB-8, and the Resistance, and every Stormtrooper who thought that their choices were taken from them, Finn had to leave.

Maz Kanata was a lot smaller than Finn would have expected of someone with her towering reputation.

Of course, that didn’t make her any less intimidating.

On the bright side, so far Han was the one getting chewed out. Some kind of domestic issue, as though Finn would know anything about that. “No, you’ve been running from this fight for too long!”

Maz’s sharp reprimand was backed up by some back-and-forth in an alien language that Finn didn’t know. Since Han wasn’t getting anywhere, and Rey looked as lost and apprehensive as Finn felt, he intervened. “Please, we came here for your help.”

Rey had a different question. “What fight?”

Maz looked at them both as if they were very young children. “The only fight. Against the Dark Side.”

The very term sent a shiver down Finn’s spine, as it would anyone who had the misfortune to have been in proximity to Kylo Ren. He shoved those memories away, focusing very hard on what Maz was saying. “Through the ages, I’ve seen Evil take many forms. The Sith. The Empire. Today, it is the First Order. In years to come, perhaps it will have yet another name. All across the galaxy, their shadow is spreading.”

That was another thing Finn had been trying not to think about. He felt himself begin to sweat, and his breathing quickened. The First Order was far-reaching, growing every day, and Finn’s window to stay out of their clutches was rapidly shrinking. Maz’s gaze was sympathetic but firm as her eyes pinned him in place. “We must face them. Fight them. All of us.”

Finn had been holding himself together through sheer willpower for days, and he finally snapped. “There is no fight against the First Order. Not one we can win. Look around; there is no chance we haven’t been spotted, and even less that there isn’t a battalion or more headed our way right this second!”

Maz didn’t respond to his outburst, but climbed across the table to invade Finn’s personal space and peer at him closely. “If you live long enough, you see the same eyes in different people. I’m looking at the eyes of a man who wants to run.” She tilted her head, “Hm, but not for his own sake. Interesting.”

That was quite enough. Finn was done with being judged by people who didn’t know the first thing about his life! “You don’t know a thing about me. Where I’m from, what I’ve seen… you don’t know the First Order like I do.”

She couldn’t know of children - of toddlers barely old enough to dress themselves - decommissioned because they didn’t meet an impossible standard, or didn’t obey an order fast enough. She hadn’t seen the brutal training program, the isolation because even your own squad would turn you in for a disloyal thought or opinion. She hadn’t watched friends die because they’d delivered bad news to an officer, or existed too close to where Kylo Ren was throwing a tantrum.

(Finn had heard the stories of Darth Vader. He wished Kylo Ren would take a few lessons in self-control from the Empire’s Sith Lord, instead of simply trying to one-up Vader’s body count.)

Astonishingly, Maz backed down, pointing to a pair of spacers in the corner. “Hm. You see those two? They’ll trade work for transportation to the Outer Rim. You can disappear there.”

He didn’t want to leave Rey, who had been abandoned by too many people. He didn’t want to leave Poe’s mission unfinished. He didn’t have a choice.

Rey chased after him. “Finn! You can’t leave. I won’t let you!”

Finn wished that she could stop him, but he couldn’t bring the First Order down on her, either. “Rey, I threw in with the Resistance two days ago. Before that, I was a First Order stormtrooper, stolen at birth from a family I’ll probably never know. My first battle, I made a choice: that I wouldn’t kill for them. Now, I’ve proved that Stormtroopers can desert, that we don’t have to serve the First Order. That makes me dangerous to them.”

Of course, a desert scavenger raised on the miserable hellhole that was Jakku would have different priorities. “You’re running away!”

If it were that simple, Finn wouldn’t be verging on a panic attack. “Not quite. I’m scared, because I know that if the First Order catches me I’ll be slowly and publically tortured to death. More than that, finding me is nearly as big a priority as finding BB-8. I can lose them, but it will take time. You need to get that droid to the Resistance, and I need to distract the people chasing you.”

Rey shook her head, “Don’t go.”

Finn wished that he could stay with her, but he couldn’t. Not yet. “Take care of yourself. Please.”

When Finn did return, he wanted Rey to stay alive for him to come back to.

Chapter Text

Rey watched Finn walk away, torn between calling after him and the urge to burst into tears. 

Then a voice was… not calling her, precisely, but there was a familiarity to the childlike cries. Rey followed the sound, determined that another lost child wouldn’t find themselves abandoned, down several flights of stairs into a dark room.

The steady clunk-clank-clunk of a droid - BB-8 - trying to descend a flight of steps was the only other sound in the still air.

The room was mostly empty, save for a shelf in an even darker corner, and the wooden chest it held. The child’s voice seemed to come from both inside the chest, and all around her

The moment her fingers brushed the metal, visions flashed before her eyes. Black-gloved hands giving the lightsaber to Maz. A battle against a dark-clad figure, pain and grief and denial. An apartment on a city planet like Rey had only seen in holos, where a tall blonde man and a brunette woman with Rey’s eyes and chin spoke in soft voices. A tent of animal hides, where a dark-haired woman, her skin weathered by sun and sand and wind, smiled through her injuries.

Rey yanked her hand away, and looked at the other items. A carved pendant on a braided leather cord, which brought visions of shy smiles and fleeting touches between a blond man and a red-haired woman who Rey instinctively knew were her parents. Her mother, giving the necklace to Maz to pass on when the time was right.
A small blond boy, giving the pendant to a girl in robes the colour of a Jakku sunset, which faded to the same girl, motionless on a sled and covered in flowers, the pendant resting below the chain woven loosely around lifeless fingers.

A crystal… There was a temple-like structure, sunny and peaceful one moment, then consumed with flames that outlined a man in black, bodies strewn around him. Shadowy figures stood around him, red lightsabers hissing in the pouring rain that drenched everything around them. A man in tan robes knelt next to an R2 droid, mechanical hand pressed against it’s dome, cries of grief echoing around him but not from him.

Rey was standing in the familiar wastes of Jakku, watching herself as a child, crying after a ship that grew ever smaller, vanishing as other ships screamed across the sky after it. Then she was in a forest, dark trees stark against a white landscape, and the figure in black was there again, red blade aimed at her, as a voice called her name.

Rey threw herself backwards… and landed on the hard stone, shaking with fear and adrenaline. 

Maz was standing in the doorway, eyes gentle and sympathetic. For once in her remembered life, Rey didn’t bother to hide her vulnerability. “What was that? I should never have gone in there!”

Maz stepped toward her, showing the same lack of respect for personal space that she had to Finn. “That lightsaber was Luke’s, and his father’s before him, and now it has called to you.”

Jakku had been hell, but at least it had been familiar, a place where things made sense! Perhaps answers lay there, if she searched for them. “I have to get back to Jakku.”

Maz shook her head, reaching out to take Rey’s hand, radiating compassion. “Han told me. Dear child, you already know the truth; whoever it is you wait for, they are not coming back.”

There had been a feeling of finality, even for her child-self, a knowledge that she would never see that ship again. Rey had denied that truth for so long, but it was impossible to escape. She bowed her head, wanting to cry for someone she barely remembered. Maz patted her hand again. “But… there is someone who still could.”

Finn? Rey wanted, desperately wanted in a way she hadn’t let herself feel in a long time, for that to be true. But that was Finn’s choice to make, not hers. Who else - “Luke?”

Maz’s eyes were sympathetic, but resolute as she leaned closer. “The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead.”

That, too, rang with undeniable truth. She hadn’t been wrong to wait on Jakku, because that waiting brought her to BB-8, and Finn, and it had taught her how to survive. But there was no longer anything for her, there, and there never would be again.

Rey nodded, just slightly, but Maz wasn’t finished. “I am no Jedi, but I know the Force. It moves around and through every living thing. Close your eyes, feel it. The Light… it has always been there; it will guide you.”

Maz’s eyes snapped open, and her voice hardened with urgency. “The saber. Take it.”

Rey started to reach out, but something stopped her; a warning that it was not yet time for her to wield that blade. To stay in this underground chamber much longer would mean death or worse. She needed to get away, needed to think.

Rey ran, barely aware of BB-8 whirring after her, away from where her life had been uprooted yet again.

Finn was moments from stepping on the traders’ ship and taking off when he felt a cry, more mental than physical, billions of voices screaming at once, and above them all, something that was less a voice and more a presence, in agony at something that should never have been.

He looked up, and in the sky five blood-red streams of energy rent the sky, destruction seeking a target. Starkiller Base. They’d actually done it.

Finn dropped his bags, just in time to brace himself for the waves of turmoil and pain, abruptly cut off as a bright glow, like a second sun, illuminated the afternoon sky.

Finn didn’t want to stay. He wanted to get as far away from the First Order as possible, away from the terrible things they had done… and would continue to do, if no-one stopped them. He couldn’t run forever.

Mumbling an apology, Finn ran in search of Han, or Maz, or Rey. Whoever he found first. Brainwashed child-soldier he might have been, but Finn knew things about the First Order. Things no one else knew, but the Resistance would need to know if they were to have any chance of stopping this from happening again.

He found Han first, gathered outside the cantina with a gaggle of other spacefarers, all watching the sky in a kind of baffled dread. 

For a moment, Finn was puzzled. Had none of them felt the screaming, heard the terror and panic and death? He pushed that aside for a moment, skidding to a halt before he actually collided with the man. “It was the Republic! The First Order, they’ve done it!”

That had made a lot more sense in his head, and Finn paused to try and force himself into coherency, long enough to realise something important. “Where’s Rey?”

Maz caught his attention, and Finn followed her back inside, down far too many stairs, and toward a chest that she threw open. “I’ve had this for ages, kept it locked away.”

Han looked far too surprised at a cylinder of silver and black metal. “Where did you get that?”

Maz barely acknowledged him, thrusting they cylinder toward Finn. “A good question for another time. Take it, find your friend!”

There was a soft humming sound from the cylinder, not unlike the discordant cacophony from Kylo Ren’s… oh. Was this what a lightsaber was supposed to be, rather than the collection of shortcuts and shoddy workmanship the Knights of Ren carried?

Before they’d been split into squads, there had been another cadet, TZ-1719. She’d been an engineer, singled out to fetch and carry parts to help Kylo Ren build his new lightsaber, and had returned to the dorms the next night full of opinions and scorn. They’d been separated shortly after, but Finn thought she’d lived to graduate, just as he had. 

Somehow, he would have known if something had happened to her.

As the building around them shook, Finn decided that they had bigger problems, and reminiscing would have to wait.

Chapter Text

Finn knew that the Stormtroopers were just following orders, but they were following bad orders, and hesitation would gain him nothing but capture or death. 

The lightsaber felt odd in his hands, a little like the vibroswords that some select troopers, Finn among them, were trained with, but different, almost alive. Finn tried to fight defensively, deflecting blaster shots to hit other troopers non-fatally when he could. He killed quickly and cleanly when he had to, sparing a second to grieve those who had never been given a choice, or perhaps never even known that the choice existed in the first place. 

They were still in dire straights when the Stormtroopers stopped attacking, re-directing their attention to an approaching squadron that Han confirmed as the Resistance. Finn took advantage of their distraction to reclaim the lightsaber, and a far more familiar blaster. The middle of a firefight was not the time to learn an entirely new weapon.

For a moment, it seemed like success was within their grasp, before the First Order’s fighting retreat turned into a more organised withdrawal, and Finn knew that something had gone terribly wrong. Heedless of his own safety, he sprinted toward the distinctive black ship, where Kylo Ren carried a limp figure in dirty off-white and tan clothing.

Finn had less than no chance against Kylo Ren, was too far away to reach them in time, but he didn’t care. He ran after the ship, screaming Rey’s name, even as it lifted into the air with a TIE escort.

All right, that path was closed to him, but there were other possibilities. Maz, perhaps. Han was clearly distracted, facing a diminutive woman dressed to lead a boots-on-the-ground mission as Resistance Soldiers spread out to help survivors. Finn didn’t need to be a Knight of Ren to know that was a state of affairs he was better off staying far away from, and went to check on Maz, instead.

Finn desperately wanted the Galaxy to slow down and give him five minutes to regain his bearings, to think, to plan, to do something.

But clearly, that would be asking too much of whatever Cosmic Force presided over the universe, so Finn was vaguely sidelined by the Resistance fighters who joined him, Han and Chewie on the Falcon, headed for a base somewhere.  Fine, everything was fine, Finn would just have to plan out the rescue himself. Ren would take her to Starkiller for interrogation; no point in taking her to the Supreme Leader in person and risking one of Ren’s rivals finding out just how many times Ren had been thwarted already.

Getting back to Starkiller Base would be tricky, Finn mused as he stepped off the Falcon and onto the base, dodging a few running pilots, but not impossible. Now that the Resistance knew of the base’s capablities, an attack or sabotage team was inevitable. Finn would just need to hitch a ride, somehow.

BB-8 nearly knocked him over, rolling as fast as their little body could move toward an X-Wing, where the pilot was just climbing down. They’d only known each other for an hour, but Finn would recognise that figure, that voice and aura, anywhere. “Poe? Poe Dameron, you’re alive?”

He started running, at the same time Poe did, colliding with each other in a desperate, relieved embrace. “Buddy! So are you!”

Thank the fates for the first thing that had gone right today! “What happened?”

Poe seemed just as stunned. “I got thrown from the crash. I woke up to no ship, no you… BB-8 says that you saved him.”

It sounded far more heroic than it was when Poe said it like that. “No, no it wasn’t just me…”

Poe beamed at him. “You completed my mission, Finn! You… that’s my jacket.”

Oh. Well, if wasn’t like Finn needed it as a memorial, anymore. He started to take it off, but Poe stopped him. “No, no, no. You keep it. It looks good on you.”

Finn briefly wondered if the pilot was flirting with him, but shelved the thought for another time. “Poe, I need your help.”

Poe led him through the command centre, straight to General Organa, without a hint of the fear of being shot or bisected by a lightsaber for interrupting. Must be nice. “General Organa! I’m sorry to interrupt… this is Finn; he needs to talk to you.”

General Organa didn’t shout, but smiled gently. “And I need to talk to him. That was incredibly brave, what you did. Renouncing the First Order, saving this man’s life.” 

She shot Poe a brief, fond look, and Finn’s mind blanked at the idea of members of the Resistance not being considered disposable. “Thank you, Ma’am. A friend of mine was taken prisoner.”

General Organa interrupted him, her eyes compassionate. “Han told me about the girl. I’m so sorry.”

There was a wealth of meaning behind those words, something deeper even than the gentle refusal that Finn braced himself for. Thankfully, Poe interrupted. “Finn’s familiar with the weapon that destroyed the Hosnian system. He worked on the base.”

The general’s eyes snapped back to him. “We’re desperate for anything you can tell us.”

Finn had planned to do that anyway. “That’s where my friend was taken. I’ve got to get there, fast.”

She nodded. “And I will do everything I can to help you. But first, you need to tell us all you know. It’s the best way for us to be able to get you both out again.”

Finn only knew a limited amount about the exact mechanics of how Starkiller Base worked. It drew energy from a sun or star, the equivalent of the energy generated by a blue dwarf. (if nothing else, the First Order scientists were efficient: why extinguish a sun when you destroyed an entire system in doing so, leaving no-one alive to threaten into compliance. Plunging a system into an ice age and making them reliant on First Order assistance was so much more effective…)

Starkiller base needed roughly a standard day to recharge between uses without causing damage to the system and the base itself. That wasn’t to say that Kylo Ren or General Hux wouldn’t order it used sooner, particularly if Snoke ordered it, but it did give them some breathing space. 

Finn knew the layout off by heart. He knew exactly how often everything needed to be cleaned to stop the base from grinding to a halt when the systems backed up and everyone got sick from contaminated water. (Finn regretted not sabotaging those systems on his way out, but he hadn’t been thinking of anything but escape, and they’d been operating on a time limit. The window where Poe was unguarded had been small enough as it was…

The reconnaissance report meant a whole lot of nothing to Finn, but apparently a lot to everyone else.  Poe gestured to the read-outs. “The scan data from Snap’s report confirm’s Finn’s report.”

The pilot, presumably Snap, took over. “They’ve somehow created a… a hyper-lightspeed weapon, created and built within the planet itself.”

Someone desperately tried to distill that into slightly less mind-boggling terms. “A laser canon?”

Snap gestured a little helplessly. “We’re not sure how to describe it -“

Several voices tried to talk over each other, before an elderly Mon Cal broke through. “How is it possible to power something that big?”

Finn stepped forward. “It uses the power of a sun. As the weapon is charged, the sun is drained. The scientists who first developed the concept were looking at ways to limit the planet-destroying devestation of a red giant, draining off the excess energy, with possible applications for terraforming multi-sun systems for a greater variety of habitat. Of course, Supreme Leader Snoke had other ideas.”

General Organa muttered something Finn was fairly sure no-one had been supposed to hear, accepting a datapad from an aide. “The First Order is charging the weapon again now. Our system is the next target.”

Over the few hours he’d known the droid, Finn had made a fine art of tuning him out. The rest of the Resistance was harder to ignore. Han leaned forward. “All right, how do we blow it up? There’s always a way to do that.”

An older man studied the readouts. “In order for that amount of energy to be contained, even if they discharged it immediately… A weapon of that size would need some kind of thermal oscillator.”

Finally, some good news for Finn to impart! “There is one. Precinct 47, here.”

The brains of the operation nodded. “If we can destroy the oscillator, it might destablise the core and cripple the weapon. Maybe the planet.”

Poe looked relieved. “OK, so we go in there and hit the oscillator with everything we’ve got.”

The Mon Cal shook his head. “They’ve got planetary shields. Our ships can’t penetrate those.”

Han shrugged. “Then we disable the shields. Kid, you worked there. What do you got?”

Finn knew how the shields worked, in theory. He didn’t have the clearance codes needed to operate them, but those could be stolen or an officer threatened into compliance. They could work that bit out once they were on-base. “I can do it. I can disable the shields, but I have to be there. On the planet.”

If nothing else, they’d need him to guide them through the service tunnels to where the shield controls were kept, or they wouldn’t last five minutes without being spotted. Besides, he needed to be on planet to find Rey. Han nodded. “We’ll get you there.”

General Organa raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Han, how?”

There was several decades of marriage and shennanigans behind those two words, and Han shot her a roguish grin. “If I told you, you wouldn’t like it.”

Chapter Text

“You know I can do whatever I want to you…”

Kylo Ren’s words echoed in her memory, pursuing her as relentlessly as the First Order Troopers searched.

She’d woken with bruises that she hadn’t had on Takodana, restrained in a chair with Kylo Ren looming over her. She had no idea whether removing his helmet was supposed to un-nerve her, or serve as some psychological trick. Rey took some bitter satisfaction in the knowledge that she didn’t know anything that would be of value to the Sith, or the First Order.

She remembered nothing but a lifetime of Desert, and a ship vanishing into the sky before that. Rey was certain that her family loved her, but her memories of them were blurred by time, and she couldn’t remember their faces, only how bitterly she had wept the day she had realised it.

Rey had no idea how she’d forced Kylo Ren out of her mind, or how she’d convinced the Stormtrooper to free her.

She’d trusted the same instincts that had kept her alive for so long on Jakku, letting it guide her, once she passed through panic and out the other side into a calm that was beyond fear. Were those instincts the Force? Something else? Did Kylo Ren just lack the control to impose his will on other Force-sensitives?

Those were questions to ponder later.

But now that she was free, she had no intention of wasting the opportunity. It was like on Jakku when the raiders attacked: keep still and silent, hide and wait for the moment to strike. She dodged patrols and trusted her instincts, and resisted the urge to leave a trail of bodies in her wake, and told herself that it wasn’t because the reminded her of Finn.

The hour that it took for checks and organising the plan of attack was not as long as Finn would have liked to familiarise himself with the new weapons and assorted ordinance. He’d done more with less, Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber being a case in point, but playing with weapons you didn’t understand was how people got blown up. Finn knelt by a crate, picking up a metal sphere and examining it.

Han looked up from where he was doing something involving a very outdated system. “Kid, be careful with those, they’re explosives!”

Finn quickly and carefully put it down. “Now you tell me?”

He quickly stood to attention when General Organa approached, even if she only had eyes for Han. “You know, no matter how much we fought, I always hated watching you leave.”

Han offered a smile that was probably meant to be charming and rogueish. “That’s why I did it; so you’d miss me.”

Finn was pretty sure that this was not a conversation for witnesses, and promptly boarded the Falcon to see if Chewbacca needed help.

The desperate flight from Jakku, with Rey trying to fix the ship and fly it at the same time, had been a bumpier ride. Being shot down and crashing on Jakku had been a worse landing. Finn was still starting to develop a strong dislike of flying.

They came to a bunker, but it was the one the officers used during downtime, and would be full of very unfriendly faces. Han’s hand was heavy on his shoulder. “So how do we get in and get the shields down?”

Finn squinted at the fortress in the distance. “The troopers will be finishing up the sanitation rounds now, which will leave those tunnels clear. We need to capture an officer or high ranking trooper to over-ride the shields, but that won’t be hard; Most of them will be doing their best to be wherever Kylo Ren isn’t.”

Poe knew that Finn was extraordinary, and the former stormtrooper kept proving it. Completing Poe’s mission, and now taking down the shields of Starkiller Base… Talk about ‘Go big or go home’! 

Poe shoved the numerous fantasies of exactly how he could show his appreciation later out of his head. 

His Squad had a mission to finish, and a planet-killer to blow up. Hopefully, most of them would even make it out alive.

Phasma hadn’t been cruel to her troopers, but she’d still followed orders to recondition or terminate them without question or quarrel. But so had the other troopers. Phasma had been a trooper, once, and done what little she could to keep those under her command out of trouble. If Finn wanted to keep his promise of all troopers getting a chance to be something more than what the First Order demanded, then he couldn’t limit himself to just the ones he liked.

That didn’t stop her disapproval at his actions - formerly a prelude to punishment or reconditioning - from sending a shiver down his spine. Finn tried to ignore it. “Can we put her somewhere out of the way?”

Han grinned, hard and faintly amused. “Is there a trash compactor?”

Finn leaned over the console and flipped a few buttons, turning off the ‘compactor’ function. He wanted Phasma out of the way, not dead or trapped when Starkiller Base was disabled. “Two corridors down. There’s one last thing I need to do here.”

Chewbacca hauled Phasma off, Han guarding his back, and Finn took a deep breath, finding the controls to record and broadcast over the base loudspeaker, and all pilot and stormtrooper helmet comms. Many of the pilots were also former stormtroopers, and if their hesitation spared even one Resistance pilot, it would be worth it.

It had to be.

He’d been thinking of little but this speech since he came up with the idea of getting onto the base. “Attention all troopers: My name is Finn. Three days ago, I was FN-2187. The First Order stole us from families and homes we may never know. They tortured and abused us and tried to reduce us to a number, but we are more than that. They trained us, but they do not control us. We have a choice, and I’ve made mine. I am Finn, and maybe I don’t entirely know who that is, yet, but I have the freedom to find out. So do you.”

There was no assurance that all, or even any of the stormtroopers would believe him, much less seize the opportunity to escape in the chaos of battle. But Finn had tried, and he had no desire to order others to his will, even if he could.

If even one stormtrooper followed his lead, it would be worth it.

Rey told herself that the wall of the hanger bay was just another rocky cliff, just another Star Destroyer wreck, as she climbed down.

She’d evaded detection so far, from Kylo Ren and from the stormtroopers, but she was running out of places to hide.

Turning a corner, she nearly slammed into the trio of Finn, Han and Chewbacca. “What happened? Did he hurt you?”

Rey shuddered, not wanting to think about it. “Finn, what are you doing here?”

He looked puzzled, as if the answer were obvious. “We came back for you.”

No one ever came back for Rey. Not her parents, not the Scavengers she’d helped build a ship in exchange for a broken promise that they’d take her with them. Yet Finn acted like his return - straight into the jaws of the same First Order that he had been so terrified of - had never even been a question.

Finn had returned for her, and Chewbacca said that it had been all his idea, even in the face of protest. Rey flung herself into his arms, basking in the warmth of the first hug she remembered. Finn held her tight, clinging just as fiercely as she did him. “How did you get away?”

Rey buried her head in his shoulder. “I can’t explain it, and you wouldn’t believe me even if I did.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to blurt out everything; the suspicion that she might be able to use the Force, the fear of what that might mean, when Han interrupted. “Escape now, hug later.”

Chapter Text

Han was dead, and Finn had no idea how he was going to tell the General. Although, she was supposed to have the Force, perhaps she already knew. Of course, that was the least of his problems right now, but perspective was important.

Finn had never held a lightsaber in his life until a few days ago, and he knew exactly how deadly Kylo Ren could be. But he was all that stood between Kylo Ren and a defenceless Rey, and letting Ren get his slimy claws into her again was not an option.

Suddenly, Kylo Ren spun away, deflecting a brief hail of blaster bolts. A flash of Stormtrooper armour, almost invisible against the snow, was briefly silhouetted against a cluster of trees, and hope soared up inside him, eclipsing Finn’s borderline terror. He used the distraction to get into a better position, and tried to remember how Knight Rava, the only Knight of Ren to have defeated their leader in combat, had moved. Kylo had killed them for the affront afterward, but perhaps the realisation that the fight hadn’t been as unwitnessed as he thought might throw him off.

Finn wouldn’t win this fight, he knew that, but if all he managed was to buy time for Chewbacca to arrive, or re-enforcements to show up, his sacrifice would be worth it.

Rey returned to consciousness to the sound of Finn screaming in pain. A flash of red light, and Finn was disarmed, Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber flung from his grasp to land in the snow, and Finn was lying on the ground, badly injured.

Then Kylo Ren’s blade was yanked from his hand, toward an un-helmeted trooper with thick, curling black hair and features that were almost a mirror of Finn’s own, though rather more feminine. It only lasted a few moments, and the stormtrooper looked almost as shocked as Kylo Ren, but it was enough for Rey to reach for Luke’s lightsaber, and drive Kylo Ren back onto the defensive, memories of lightsaber battles she had never been in rushing through her, clearer with every moment she held onto the lightsaber. It wasn’t nearly enough, but perhaps she could hold him off long enough for the others to escape.

The earth shook, and probably saved Rey’s life. Being forced to divide his attention, and his injury, had slowed Kylo Ren down, but he still had years more experience than any of his opponents. The ground split, and a huge chasm appeared, Kylo Ren on one side, Rey and Finn and the Stormtroopers on the other. Then there was another roar, and the Millenium Falcon appeared, Chewbacca at the helm. The un-helmeted Stormtrooper glanced at Rey, then at Finn, still bleeding onto the snow. 

She gestured to the other stormtroopers, who ran to a shuttle near the treeline. “We have proper medical facilities on our shuttle. We’ll take him.”

There was no time to argue, not when Finn needed medical attention. Rey nodded. “Follow the Falcon to the base, and take your armour off before you arrive, at least long enough for me to explain things.”

Poe’s victory high from blowing up Starkiller Base lasted exactly as long as it took him to land and see a medical crew sprinting toward where the Millenium Falcon and a First Order Shuttle were coming in to land.

He ran after them, just in time to see a skinny girl in desert clothing - battered and bruised but at least upright under her own power - as she descended the ramp on shaky legs. Was this the Rey that Finn had been so worried over? Poe arrived just in time to lunge forward and catch her when her legs gave out. “Whoa there. Rey, right? Finn mentioned you.”

Abrubtly, probably-Rey burst into tears, pointing at the shuttle, where the Medical Crew was re-emerging… with Finn on a med-evac sled. Poe squeezed probably-Rey tighter than he intended, and hastily losened his grip. “Sorry. I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Poe Dameron, Finn is my friend, too.”

“Poe Dameron?” The question came from a woman in basic blacks, with the same dark skin and intense eyes as Finn, “The prisoner that FN - that Finn deserted for?”

That… was stretching the truth a little, and making Poe’s rescue sound like something out of a romance Holo, but now was not the time to quibble. Poe tried to smile through his worry. “That’s me. I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of your name?”

She shook her head, suddenly sad, as though probably-Rey still crying into Poe’s shoulder wasn’t terrifying enough. “I don’t have a name, yet. I’d hoped to ask Finn… but if you were there when he was named, perhaps you have suggestions?”

Did that mean she was another former Stormtrooper. The General was going to have his hide if he’d started a revolution… or worse, make him organise it! He cast about for ideas, and something that might once have been a memory tugged at him. Finn and Jannah. 

He didn’t know where the names had come from, but it had felt right for Finn, and it felt right for this woman, too. “How does Jannah sound?”

She tilted her head, considering, then nodded firmly. “It feels right.” She hesitated, and her voice was a lot quieter when she spoke again. “They won’t decommission him, will they? The First Order wasn’t willing to invest in rehabilitating stormtroopers who took too long to recover.”

Every time Poe had thought he’d heard the worst… He shook his head. “No, they’re taking him to the med-bay to do whatever they can.”

At that moment, General Organa appeared, slightly widened eyes the only sign of her surprise. Poe sagged in relief as she gently removed Rey from him, stroking the girl’s hair gently. “Come along, Rey, and all you newcomers. You can tell me your story somewhere quieter.”

She caught Poe before he could make a break for the Med-Bay. “I need you to comm Lando and get him here immediately. Go fetch him if you have to.”

Poe had a feeling that she’d assigned him largely to keep him out from underfoot of the Medics, but he did feel better for having something to do. “Of course, General.”

 Rey hadn’t wanted to leave until she knew that Finn was going to survive and recover. She’d at least wanted to hug him again before she left, but Finn was being kept in a Medical Coma until the injury that ran parallel to his spine healed enough that the Medics didn’t have to worry about him becoming paralysed by moving too much. Rey hadn’t found that reassuring, nor had Jannah or any of the other former Stormtroopers, whose numbers grew daily, but Finn was recovering.

Hopefully, but the time Rey returned with Luke Skywalker, Finn would be awake to meet him.

Rey was no stranger to climbing, but these seemingly-endless steps were something else entirely. 

She couldn’t help a twinge of annoyance when she reached the top, and spotted the cloaked figure who had been watching her climb. He couldn’t have come half-way down to meet her? The figure turned around, gazing at her in barely-veiled shock and wonder and disbelief.

He was older and greyer than the holos of him that had reached even to Jakku, and the beard was new, and a nagging sense of familiarity tugged at the back of her mind. Drawing the lightsaber from her belt, she held it out to him, praying that he would take it and be willing to return. He did walk closer, his steps faltering and hesitant, and reached out.

Instead of taking the lightsaber, a weathered hand cupped her cheek, “Rey? My Rey, after all this time?”

Memory exploded in her mind, of a time before Jakku, when a woman with red hair and a younger Luke were a constant presence in her life. “Dad?”

Abruptly, she pushed him away. “Why didn’t I remember? Why did you leave me there? I waited so long, and you never came!”

In a fit of fury, she half turned, hurling the lightsaber over the edge of the cliff. Luke calmly held out a hand, summoning it back. “When the First Order began to rise, they started by going after the Heroes of the last war. You and Enfys were on a trip, while I was on Hosnian Prime to help Leia. Your mother sent me a message that she was taking you into hiding, but I never knew where, and searching would only put you in more danger.”

Rey remembered a ship vanishing into the sky, and for the first time, another ship in pursuit, lasers firing. Maz Kanata’s words echoed in her mind, “The person you wait for, they are never coming back. But there is one who still could…” The Force told her that her mother was gone, but her father was here, now, in front of her.

All of the grief and fear and abandonment that she had never allowed herself to truly experience, because on Jakku weakness could mean death, welled up inside her. A choked sob forced its way out of her, and she couldn’t stop the tears. Gentle arms wrapped around her, clad in simple homespun that sang of home and family and her earliest memories. Luke’s grief mingled with her own. “Enfys would never have left you if she thought there was another way. If she lived, she would have come back.”

Rey didn’t know how long they stood there, rocking gently, but when she finally pulled back and scrubbed her eyes, dusk was starting to fall. “Why did you hide here all these years?”

Her father sighed, “There are some things I need to get before we leave. I’ll explain on the way.”