I had several reasons for writing this story that I'd like to share, along with a few thoughts on plot and characterization.

First, I wanted to rehabilitate my Kylo character a bit after the ending of Fulcrum. I wanted readers to appreciate that in his own way Kylo loves Rey and that he truly mourns his little son Sheev. There is an element of sacrifice here from Kylo's perspective (selfish and cruel though the act of killing Sheev may be), and I think that's important to understanding the ending of Fulcrum. I'm not excusing what he did, just elaborating on the context a bit.

And monster that Kylo is, he pales in comparison to Snoke who is a very sophisticated version of evil. Snoke's style is surprisingly non-confrontational and indirect for many things (except dealing with his Apprentice). He's sort of the ultimate wolf in sheep's clothing—to borrow a trite metaphor I used in Fifth Wife. Snoke lures Rey into a comfort zone. Little by little she gets manipulated into sympathy for Snoke because our Rey is compassionate by nature and because Snoke is deceptively kind and patient. He's biding his time for Rey like he once bided his time watching Palpatine's Empire. In some ways, Snoke is very effective because you want to like him . . . sort of.

I also wrote Part Two so Rey could get her memory back and learn the whole story about Sheev. While the "in the dark" version of Rey is not the Stepford wife some readers feared she would end up, at the beginning of Part Two Rey has lost an awful lot of meaning as a person and in her relationship to Kylo because Snoke wiped her memories. I wanted her to reclaim her mind and to gain more agency in Part Two.

Rey comes into her potential in the Force in Part Two. You saw the beginnings of that in Fulcrum, but she spends much of that fic resisting Kylo's repeated attempts to interest her in developing her Force powers. Rey is mostly afraid of the Force because she's only ever seen it used for evil. But in Part Two we see her developing and refining her unique skills.

I also wrote Part Two to bring back Shan. In my mind, Shan is a tempering influence on the very worst of Snoke's character. And, I couldn't see Snoke keeping his hands off our Rey of Light long term unless Snoke had his own Light Side wifey. It just wouldn't be in keeping for Snoke's character to show that sort of restraint.

Fifth Wife ended rather early on in the Snoke-Shan relationship mostly because it was the logical stopping point. We never get to 'I love you' in Fifth Wife. But that couple had years more together to deepen their emotional bond. That connection is not shown due to the gap in the two story timeframes. Perhaps that's a big omission because some readers felt that Snoke wouldn't bother doing all this for Shan, and that he would have moved on to the sixth wife by now.

The gothic references continue in Part Two. Fulcrum had a portrait of a dead wife and a castle with an elderly caretaker full of secrets and a treasure trove in the basement. Part Two has a dead wife entombed in the basement guarded by her monstrous, magical husband-lover. Snoke is a combination of Mr. Rochester (only he's not hiding a crazy wife, he's hiding a dead one) and Heathcliff (remember when he dug up the dead Cathy? Resurrection-happy Snoke would have done that). And, of course, nothing is more gothic than our two brooding and hooded anti-hero Sith.

So . . . the ending. Why doesn't Kylo kill Snoke? Because he can't.

I wanted the ending to Part Two to compliment the original ending. Kylo ends Fulcrum victorious at war but in personal defeat with the loss of his son. He ends Part Two in defeat to Snoke but with a personal victory in his reconciliation with Rey. Kylo still gets to rule the galaxy with his family at his side like he had planned. But he will never get to be the top dog Sith. So once again the bad guys who do bad things go unpunished. Only this time, the bad guy is Snoke.

Were you rooting for Kylo to kill Snoke? I know that lots of readers were looking for that ending. But while the impetus of the conflict in Part Two is Snoke abusing Rey, the real conflict that keeps our lovers apart is the killing of Sheev Ren. Killing Snoke doesn't solve this. And so I wanted the story to end with Kylo still under Snoke's thumb. That's how real life works. We all have conflicts that we can't walk away from and have to deal with. The boss from Hell. The frenemy. The ex-husband you have joint custody with. The difficult in-laws. Whoever is in your life who complicates things but you can't leave them behind.

For many of us, this is our family. And that's the case here too with Snoke. You don't get to choose your family. Embarrassing bad behavior and all, they are yours for life. Maybe they usually surprise you in a bad way, but occasionally they surprise you in a good way like Snoke does at the end when he lets Kylo live.

I really like the dynamic of making the Sith a dysfunctional family. Families-like marriages-are a complicated mix of love and hate and history. So too with my Sith. I had always planned that Snoke would be the Skywalker patriarch, but I never got to explore that idea in the original Fulcrum. It was in the first draft, but ultimately it was mostly revised out of the story. The concept of Kylo being treated as a son by Snoke and even called a son still remains in Fulcrum here and there. At one point, Snoke even welcomes Rey to his family when he meets her the first time.

I opted to omit most of the Sith family stuff in Fulcrum because I didn't want to muddy the waters with Kylo's very real angst over his mother and uncle. Our anti-hero Kylo spends most of the latter half of Fulcrum killing his kin-first Leia, then Luke and finally Sheev-even while he is trying to create with Rey the loving nuclear family they both never had. And, well, it doesn't end happily for anyone.

But the idea of family remained in my head and it shows up in Fifth Wife. Shan sees the Skywalker clan in the future but the exact relationship to her and Snoke isn't clear. Shan gets led astray trying to change the Skywalker destiny she foresees. And, of course, she can't. Because destiny is a trap for the unwary.

Once again, I came back to the Sith as family idea in Part Two. It adds a whole creepy dimension to Kylo and Rey's interactions with Snoke and it plays off the largest obstacle between Kylo and Rey-the sacrifice of their son Sheev at the end of Fulcrum.

Do you have a perfect family? I don't. Mine can be very critical and embarrassing and stubborn. And I'm not the greatest daughter, sister, mother or wife. We don't rise to the Skywalker levels of dysfunction, but we have our moments. That's the thing about family-they can infuriate you but you still have to live with them. And you might continue to see them and love them even if they drive you crazy and treat you badly. And that's why the family dysfunction dynamic seems to work well for my Sith. It's also why the story ends with all the major characters alive. Kylo, Snoke, Rey and Shan are all going to have to continue to deal with each other in the future.

But sometimes you just can't deal with your family. Rey ends Fulcrum in a lie and when she learns the truth in Part Two, she basically checks out of the Skywalker clan as much as possible. She and Kylo are distant and she has pulled back too from her kids. I think that surprised some readers because Rey was such a devoted mother in Fulcrum and she endured just about everything to keep her family together. But in Part Two, Rey becomes the obstacle that keeps her family apart. This was very intentional. I wanted Rey to be at a breaking point. Everyone has their limits to how they will allow themselves to be treated and Rey finally found hers.

Anyone who's been in a long term relationship has lived through a 'rough patch.' Kylo and Rey have more than just the usual marital challenges, of course. I like to think that Rey's experience surviving on Jakku is a great lead up to her life with Kylo. Rey is still surviving but her concerns are not food and water anymore. Compared to what Rey is now dealing with, food and water are much simpler problems to solve.

Have you had the experience of grief or depression? Rey struggles with this. I know we all love Rey the fighter, but even strong people are vulnerable and struggle now and then. Through much of this story, Rey struggles to find her way. She does eventually go back to her family and, hopefully, to much happiness again. Life goes on. And that's a good thing.

Fulcrum shocked and offended people from start to finish. A vocal segment of readers couldn't conceive of a Rey character who had so many insecurities and who was so unaccustomed to healthy romantic relationships that she would fall for the manipulative, abusive Kylo. It amused me to see that this time around, readers wanted to get our lovers back together quicker than I did. I wanted to give Rey time to hurt for her lost Sheev and her betrayals. I wanted her to be angry first and then cold. And I wanted Kylo to grovel and beg. All so that when Rey does return to Kylo it is an affirmative choice.

Kylo struggles through Part Two from start to finish. He struggles with his guilt over his son, with his evolving role as Emperor, and with his relationships to Rey and to Snoke. He has achieved his dream job and, well, it's harder than he thought it would be. And for most of this story, he's doing it without support from Rey and amid significant conflict with his Master. Then, at the ending, Kylo is humbled. There are a few very vulnerable moments for Kylo in Fulcrum, but for the most part Kylo is the in command Sith chapter after chapter. I thought it was a nice irony to have him victorious and in command years later, but still humbled nonetheless.

Shan Damask from the Fifth Wife shows up in this story. She's a plot device at the beginning -her resurrection sets all sorts of betrayals in motion-and she goes on to play a key role in the two pivotal conflict scenes between Snoke and Kylo. I like to think that Shan exerts a tempering influence over the worst of Snoke's impulses. Would the Starkiller have occurred if Shan were around? Maybe. But maybe not.

Shan is a character who upends the hero Jedi stereotype of the SW universe. In fact, Shan was deliberately written in Fifth Wife to be the anti-Rey in most every aspect. (See the Notes to Fifth Wife for more explanation on this point.) Shan is the sort of malleable nice girl a controlling guy like Snoke chooses. She's shy of conflict and she would never have a Kylo/Rey-style screaming match with Snoke. In fact, Shan doesn't stand up to Snoke on much of anything until, of course, she does so spectacularly. And, true Jedi that she is, in Part Two Shan is only motivated to challenge Snoke on behalf of another. Twice, she saves Kylo.

Shan is one of those women who at first glance might appear very innocuous, maybe even mostly decorative. She doesn't have a direct or challenging personality and so her influence is not always apparent. But it's there. She might be the Padawan who barely passed the Jedi trials, but she's the only person in my AU who confronts Snoke and gets her way. Shan knows to reason with the ever-rational Sith Master. And Snoke listens to reason. I think Shan is type of woman Snoke would actually listen to. He won't stand for being lectured to or challenged by a Leia Organa type because of his own dominant personality. It takes a quieter approach to sway him. Milo, incidentally, has this same sort of deft, quiet approach with Kylo and Rey in Fulcrum.

I especially like the irony that Shan the Jedi who eschewed attachments ends up holding the Skywalker Sith clan together.

Part Two is a Reylo fic, so the reader doesn't get a chance to see any interaction solely between Snoke and Shan. But I'm sure Shan wasn't entirely happy to be resurrected, especially given the cost to Kylo and Rey.

Consider Shan's perspective from Chapter 21 of Fifth Wife:

She wonders what forever with this Sith might have been like. Would she have been the last Jedi left alive, kept alive to serve as the personal Light for a man grown impossibly Dark? With her power offered up to him nightly, the balm for a soul that might otherwise be consumed by the destructive power of the shadow Force? Shan stares at his gleaming sword now and thinks perhaps things are better this way. She would never want to live long enough to be the last of anything. To be the lonely remnant of bygone times.

Of course, this is how things do ultimately turn out for Shan. Is she okay with that now because she's with her beloved Snoke? We know that Snoke is crazy about Shan, but is she as in love with him? A lot of the Shan-Snoke story is missing, so you can imagine it for yourself.

Cresta Cole is in this story only because she was in the end to the Fifth Wife/Fulcrum epilogue. I didn't feel like I could introduce her character to Fulcrum readers and then ignore her altogether in Part Two. At the time of writing the epilogue, I was a couple of chapters into my Cresta/Sidious love story. I was planning for that duo to be my next fic. But on a whim, I picked up Fulcrum again and ended up writing Part Two. At first, I was sort of annoyed by having to deal with Cresta as a character, but then she seemed like a great sounding board for Rey. And since I had already begun thinking of the Cresta/Sidious backstory, Cresta's scenes were a fun opportunity to drop little hints for that fic.

Cresta is one of those people who have no filter to what they say. Pretty much everything they think comes right out of their mouth. Sometimes, that's refreshing and candid. Other times, it's rude and insensitive. But it's always sincere and real, no matter how offensive. Old people can be like that, although this is pretty much Cresta's personality all along.

Cresta/Sidious is still coming. Those two will be my star crossed lovers in a galaxy far, far away. Kept apart by a meddling and disapproving Snoke. Our mastermind Sith can be a controlling asshole where his apprentices are concerned.

So why am I going to write "I married a Sith" Version 3.0? Well, with Cresta I want to keep exploring different female heroes. I'm super excited that the SW universe is getting deeper and broader and more inclusive in so many ways with Episode 7 and now Rogue One. I'm really interested in seeing female protagonists of all types. There are lots of ways to make an impact in life as a woman, and you don't have to swing a lightsaber to do it. Cresta has a speech along those lines in Part Two because this is an important point for me. Just because a character has a lot of traditional female aspects (like Shan) doesn't mean she isn't important and interesting. And it's not necessarily empowering to take a traditional male hero role and drop a woman into it. That often misses some of the drama of the female perspective. I am by no means an expert on gender relations and our modern world keeps evolving in its ideas about gender (which is a good thing). But from my vantage point as a writer, gender makes an impact and you see that in my writing.

I like to show my female characters in relation to others (children, husbands, family, friends) because I think that relationships are very central to most women's experiences and life decisions. My Rey spends most of Fulcrum struggling to create a nuclear family and compromising again and again for that goal. That's actually a very traditional female character arc, even if it's experienced by a non-traditional badass woman. Then Shan the Jedi girl who doesn't want an attachment (and isn't keen on motherhood) ends up the wife/mother/helpmate to a Sith disguised as a socialite in Fifth Wife.

Modern women's lives are complicated like that. We are a mix of old and new, whether we work outside the home or not, whether we are mothers or not. And what we want in life changes over time and with the influence of others. Sometimes that can lead you to a life you never thought you would have or would want. In this respect, I like to think that my fics are motivated to show a female twist on the 'heroes journey' concept.

My AU of the Sith is not a morality play and I am not trying to teach any life lessons with my writing. I'm also not trying to romanticize bad behavior, especially abuse or violence against women and children. But I want my Sith to be true to their warped ideals and mostly consistent in their actions. These are not watered down versions of bad guys. They are monsters through and through, and this has ramifications on themselves and their families. It's twisted and dark, for certain. But I hope it's also interesting and, on the whole, fun to read. My Sith have different talents and personalities, there are conflicts and rivalries between them, but also admiration and true regard.

Please note that every chapter of my fics is written from a specific character's point of view, and that tends to color their attitudes and perceptions. There are a lot of 'unreliable narrator' type moments in my stories. I'm not endorsing the views of my characters, I'm just presenting them. I don't craft my stories to shock or anger readers, and there are plenty of fics out there with much more explicit and pervasive sex and violence.

In preparing to revisit my Reylo drama, I went back and re-read Fulcrum. All in all, I am happy with most of that work. There are points that are clunky and awkward, and aspects of it that I might write differently. But on the whole, I feel as though it truly presents the vision I had in mind. I'm not a trained writer and I do this mostly on my phone. I also knew that the rape story premise would alienate many readers. But I did my best to write a story that would be rich in detail, conflict and emotion. And I wanted to show the drama of SW from the perspective of the Dark Side, including all its excesses and violence.

There are a couple of Fulcrum chapters that struck me as incredibly challenging now that I have some distance from the actual writing of the fic. Chapter 13 (Kylo and Rey's first night together) especially is very hard to read. It's probably the most revised chapter in all of fan fiction ever, and I kept making it more and more raw. Not with explicit sex, but with true hurt. That chapter was a huge plot point and character exposition rolled into one. But damn, it's hard to read. And with Chapter 13 taken in close context to Chapter 15 (Rey's return to Kylo) and Chapter 16 (the Reylo detente), Fulcrum takes a very dark turn. Upon re-reading this portion of the tale, I'm not surprised many readers couldn't stay with me.

Chapter 30 (The aftermath of Leia) is also very hard to read. But it's hands down one of the best parts of Fulcrum, I think, and I'm quite proud of it. I am also proud of the opening scene with Snoke in Chapter 2, the Reylo bickering in Chapter 11, the dance of lies Rey crafts for General Hux in Chapter 18, the Sith marriage in Chapter 20, Kylo's self-doubt in Chapter 32, and the tragedy of Chapter 35.

Fulcrum had lots of moments of humor, and that's absent from Part Two. Honestly, there were not a lot of occasions for laugh out loud humor in the continuation.

Thank you to everyone who read this fic. And thanks to everyone who commented. I always read and consider the comments, even if I don't usually respond to them. I find the comments to be very helpful, even the critical ones.