The scars still hurt her.

He noticed her carrying the bag on her good side, never placing the straps where the twin scars ran deep. They'd started again on the path in near companionable silence until his curiosity broke it. "How are you so certain I need forgiveness?" There was an edge to his voice that she seemed to ignore.

"Because it's what Saskia needs. I've been thinking of it since you told me the truth about the little youngling girl. She needs to forgive herself." Jaina wasn't quite looking at him. Her gaze had drifted to the monolithic stone rising from a tangled of brambles. He had the sense that she wanted to speak. She wanted to say something else that she couldn't say before. Kylo waited. There was nothing to do in the whole world they found themselves in. They were lost and would continue to be so until the Force showed them the way.

Before he could think twice, he asked. "Why do you love me?"

Jaina looked surprised he'd asked that of all things. Kylo was aware of wanting to know, needing to know why. She must love me, he thought quickly, when she didn't answer right away. There was no other reason why she would follow him across the galaxy, why she would stay by his side, ready to fight every step of the way.

"For years, I had...a hole right here." She touched her chest in meaning. "I don't speak of it inside my heart. It was just…an emptiness inside me. I lived with it for so long that I guess I became accustomed to it being there. I didn't...feel. I was half a person. But I had purpose as a pilot and kept living. I was so empty for so long and then there was a transfer of pilots from the Dauntless to the Finalizer. They..." She didn't know how to say what they meant to her. The words felt clumsy, hopelessly inadequate.

"They challenged me. They became part of my squadron. We flew together, fought together. I had never felt like anyone was there for me until I knew them."

Pilots were always faceless to them.

He didn't want to pity her. He had seen her squadron in her mind once. The six males who had surrounded her - brothers, the brothers she never had. They were close, achingly close. She was so bitterly happy in her memories.

The other memories from that time were white-washed grey from too much remembering. But, those of the squadron, were the brightest and most colorful. They were a source of happiness for her, strengthening her in the light. Jaina was alive in them, smiling, laughing. They were the pilots from the Dauntless. Radford's elite pilots, personally trained. Some of his best. Jaina fit them like a missing puzzle piece.

He saw them die through her eyes; the screaming only present in her head.

Kylo Ren didn't know pity, he didn't understand it. He saw the missing pieces where they fit in, the careless orders he gave that trickled down into a flight plan for the squadron.

He was punishing Captain Radford - wasn't he? The captain whose penance was exacted in blood, in flesh, in lives - for refusing to stop his feelings for Saskia Taverre, for refusing to give the order to fire on Hays Minor. Radford always thought it was Hux. All of the Dauntless's pilots who had transferred into the Finalizer, eliminated. Kylo Ren dealt in absolutes, not in margins, in lives.

"They were blown up in front of me. I was so angry that I survived and they hadn't. I felt the hole," she flattened her palm against her breast in meaning. Her voice was dull, lifeless. "Widen so big I thought it would swallow me up."

He wanted to touch her.

He wanted to hold her even if she fought his embrace.

But something…almost like fear held him back.

I killed them, he thought, stricken for the first time in Kylo Ren's life. Yes, it was as if he had killed Radford's men - Jaina's brothers with his lightsaber- that wasn't a Resistance Base, it was a First Order installation that fired on them. Simple execution methods were too good for Radford's men. It had to hurt.

He made her grieve into something like madness. He had almost made her into the beast from Luke's nightmares, the thing devoid of reasoning and emotion - without knowing it.

"I was so lost. I shouldn't have gone there...," She almost couldn't breathe, hiccoughing loudly. "I saw you...and that hole. The one right here, filled up." Jaina looked at him finally, tears in her eyes. Then, she saw him. So that's how it begins. His younger self, his unscarred self. That curiosity, wonder, joy, love, lust. In the midst of her emotions, he drew back, realizing he had no right whatsoever to feel the way he did toward her.

"I felt something again and no matter how far away you are...that hole has never come back. I don't know if it's love or not, or how anyone defines it. I just know that you're important to me because you changed my world."

…

"How did your wife and daughter die?"

Luke almost wished she hadn't asked. Remorse and pain from that time returned phantom-like. His chest clenched, unable to block out the visceral reaction to memory. It was so long ago, but he hadn't forgotten that sense of loss.

"I think I was wrong – no surprise there. I don't think they died."

Through their bond, Leia's luminescent form barely registered surprise. "You were in so much pain that we never asked what happened." Truthfully, she had never seen her brother reduced to that state, not even when losing his friends, not when their father died to save him.

"I thought I was going to lose my mind. I was out of my head, Leia. I wanted to find whoever did it and kill them for taking them away from me." He rubbed his face, forcing himself to relive those first few chaotic days after returning to the temple. "Revenge wasn't the Jedi way. I was the Master of the Temple. I had padawans under my tutelage...and I had to be there for Ben." His nephew's devastation, his screaming that frightened the students in the hall went through Luke's mind. "Ben took it hardest."

"You wanted to send him home." She remembered Luke's message to her, received by C-3PO, when she was out dining with a senator. "But I thought the best place for him was with you, far away from where it happened."

"He grieved, you know, it was terrible to see. I had to do something to make it stop. I honestly thought I was going to lose him then." Luke had weighed the things he had done for the greater good against his conscience. "Ben was so young...he had his whole life ahead of him and he was always the best student. To be lost in rage and grief over the dead wasn't right...So I made him forget." Owning up to his first mistake with her son was a way of resolving his guilt. One day he would have to face the result of his mistakes, but the time wasn't now.

Leia was silent. He could feel her processing his words and worried she would turn away from him, one of the last true links he had to family.

"I'm sorry." Luke breathed the words in his room aboard the Gilad Pellaeon. Beyond his room, the sounds of merriment had yet to fade. He had watched the Battlecruiser explode and seen the joy on Jagged Fel's face. Then a Star Destroyer had come and that too, after a terse dogfight with Dameron leading the clawcraft in a flight formation reminiscent of the New Republic's X-Wing fleet, had reduced the large ship into a smoldering debris ring.

Now they were lying in wait for the last one to share the fate of the other First Order ships with the Rebellion's old enemy, Admiral Daala, waiting on standby to lend assistance in a neighboring sector.

"One day, you have to tell him that yourself." She said softly. "It needed to be Ben's choice to forget, not your choice to make. It's not my forgiveness you need, Luke. It's theirs."

"Forgiveness?" One side of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile. "Forgiveness from Kylo Ren comes at the end of a lightsaber. I can't save him, Leia."

"Ben isn't gone. I've hoped for so long and sometimes, I think I still see him inside Kylo Ren." She was smiling as well, sadly. "And I know too, the only one who can save him is himself, so you have nothing to apologize to me for."

Luke had the sense of her, his twin, waiting for the impossible. He felt the stretch of stars brimming with life between them and wished he could offer her something far more tangible than wild hopes. If Jaina could overcome the darkness in Saskia Taverre's heart - "But what do I know? The Force chose the one person who I didn't want to be a Jedi to restore the light."

"Luke, she has taken many lives." Flashes of terror, chaos, those final seconds of Admiral Ackbar and the rest being catapulted into space from burning wreckage, replayed in her memory; Leia knew who he spoke of immediately. "She fired on the ship as a TIE pilot. Less than a day passed before her mother was killed by Amilyn Holdo who was only trying to buy us time to escape. I can't appeal to her sense of justice for the Resistance."

Those wounds...run far too deep.

"I know." And his sigh filled his chest. "She was with them for too long. I suspect between me and Ben, she would always choose him. She'd probably even fight...," He hesitated on revealing his true thoughts, leaving the sentence unfinished.

"You have to try and keep trying. You can bring her to our side. Train her, gain her trust." Even so, Leia wouldn't vocalize her doubts and suspicions. She needed something to hold onto. There was a reason why Jaina went against the First Order to save a stranger from certain death - it meant a seed was planted somewhere inside, a seed of doubt. The young woman's own reaction to questions about her absent father filled Leia with foreboding.

"The Jedi already appear to her. They've been training her for sometime now. They want her to restore the Order...they never appeared to Rey. She was...,"

"Palpatine."

"So you knew?"

"I felt it immediately before we sent her to find you. I never forgot how Darth Sidious felt in the Force."

...

They reached the edge of the city before she was aware of it. Their conversation had ended with her confession. She almost preferred the monotonous slogging through the swampland as opposed to the struggle to putting down one foot after the other, feeling like a fool. Her attention however brief was captured by the ruins surrounding them. Spires emerged from wild greenery, roots wider than she was tall, protruded through skywalks, bush-like canopies spread a phantasmagoria of shadow and life in the dead city.

Jaina glimpsed a derelict spaceport emerging from the undergrowth, crashed landspeeders overturned into rusted hulks. She hesitated, thinking she had seen a shadow cross the opposite side of what had been an avenue or thoroughfare thronging with civilians. But it was a flitter of darkness, one of the many that encroached on the edges of her vision.

Kylo slashed through clinging gorse bushes, hacking crudely at them. Their boots were sticky with plant residue and fouler things from the stink of plant rot spreading from puddles of greyish gunk. She hurried to catch up, her hand drifting to his shoulder when he stopped suddenly.

"Do you hear that?"

He half-turned, dark eyes narrowed in his face.

She nodded slightly, feeling the need to stay close.

"Nothing." He glanced down at the hilt in his hand for meaning. No hum. No familiar growl, only that godforsaken silence. Kylo hit the switch off and on with nothing. "The acoustics are off."

We could be followed without even knowing.

"Maybe we should go back...," She thought of the hours they'd spent on foot since the swampland. At least there, despite the watery terrain, they'd had a chance to see whatever came at them. The back of her neck prickled, she turned around, retreating a few steps back.

"Kylo, I think we should go this way." She couldn't define what it was exactly, but she didn't want to keep going in the general trajectory they'd been headed down. "Kylo...hey...," She turned back around quickly. "Oh...you've got to be kidding me." She stared at his back, confidently striding away; she hurried after him, nearly stumbling into him when he stopped suddenly at the intersection of what had once undoubtedly been a busy thoroughfare. His gaze was fixated to the west and for good reason.

There were three of them.

Quadrupedal, massive, reminiscent of a monstrous hound from some forgotten world's mythology, she stared at their many rows of teeth, instantly thinking of them tearing into flesh - and tried to put on a brave face.

"Is it me, or is the planet trying to kill us?"

"You think?" He muttered with a slight head tilt to the hounds.

...

He didn't know how much more he could take. The eyeless shyracks emerging in day, the bipedal monstrosities in the forest, to the hideous beasts prowling through Kaas City. Four powerful legs ending in paws tipped with dagger-like claws, the long whip-like tail swished back and forth while its slavering fang-lined jaws parted, tasting his fear. A row of spines ran down the creature's spine, altering color.

"Tuk'ata."

The name came into his head unbidden. The name had a flavor to it like a half-forgotten memory, Ben Solo's memory. He had a hazy recollection of Luke's voice telling a story about a cave on Yavin IV. They were Sith Hounds, guardians of Sith tombs. In the back of his mind, he vaguely recalled seeing a fallen statue outside the city limits, sensing ancient malevolence in the area. But it had nothing to do with them. It wasn't what they were looking for, so he had said nothing.

They'd likely walked past it.

"Nothing is unbreakable." Kylo repeated to himself, hand touching the place where his lightsaber hilt rested. Hindquarters tensed, he sensed their leap through the Force as Jaina did. They split apart, barely evading the claw-tipped paws.

Jaina hadn't been able to watch them, to analyze their weaknesses. He felt her confusion - then she dashed for the close quarters they'd so recently left. Her lightsaber hummed in her hand; the red blade angled behind her. He had barely a moment to see where she was going before he was forced to attend to his own battle. He was already moving when the larger Tuk'ata's hind legs propelled it forward again. The growl ripped near his ear, outstretched body lunging and landing with a heavy thud; the smaller one with silver striping lengthwise across its side, stayed back.

The key was to keep moving.

Kylo's thoughts felt scattered, his dash haphazard. Inside his boots, his feet slid, struggling to gain traction. His heart pounded in his chest. Thoughts of Jaina distracted him - he pushed them away. He needed focus. At the same moment, he felt an unmistakable surge in emotion that could only have come from one person. The Tuk'ata sprung forward again in his distraction. He ducked beneath it, claws inches from raking across his face and chest. He slid to the left barely evading the kick of its legs.

Focus! His instincts screamed.

Kylo attempted to seize it with the Force, pushing up to his full height. Hand outstretched, he felt the energy he controlled brush around the beast, unable to catch a hold of its throat.

- of course the thing had to be impervious to Force attacks. how else did the Sith make them?

...

She had the remnants of a plan in her head.

Lead them away.

Divide.

Kill.

She ran past the shattered end of a pipe emerging from a wall of strange flowers a deep shade of violet. The hound thundered past it, nearly upon her. For every stretch of ground she covered, the creature bounded twice the distance.

... can't run forever.

She caught sight of a wall ahead, veering for it. At the last possible second before she struck it, she pushed herself up, kicking off. She somersaulted over the hound's lunge, dragging her lightsaber through its plated back. The creature roared dismally, as blood flew high. Jaina directed her off kilter landing, crouching with the saber beam burning into the ground. She sensed a bright flare of panic in the Force from Kylo and tried to ignore it. The hound was still alive, still a threat.

She pushed herself up and started running again. This time as both she and the creature faced one another, she dropped down, sliding into the crushed embrace of vegetation, shuttering her lightsaber off and on, goring through the hound's underside. The dark furred underbelly slit open like an overripe fruit, the blade piercing and carving through vital organs. The intense heat of the blade cauterized the wound as she pulled up and out. The creature fell heavily, uttering a weak, disjointed growl. Distantly in the back of her mind, she remembered the Praetorian Guard becoming a sack of meat after his throat had been ripped out. She had felt different then, desperate, angry over the damage to BB-9e, feeling very little pleasure in taking down her enemy, now…

Jaina propelled herself upward, shaking her head briskly, ignoring the slick sting on her bruised palms. Gripping her lightsaber, she sprinted back the way she'd come.

Once they're in motion, it was hard for them to stop...she held onto that thought, dancing aside from the sudden bound and leap forward of the silvered hound. Heart in her throat, she completed her spin, the blade arcing around her body. The hound was ready for her however, being smaller and lighter than the other.

Talons raked inches from her arm. Jaina hissed under her breath. That was close. Too close. Completing her revolution, she had forgotten the serpent-like tail which whipped across her face, laying a stinging track across her upper arms and chest. Slapped from her hand, the hilt flew from her sweaty grasp, the bouncing beam landing downward into the grass. Jaina started for it, unarmed, only to feel the hot graze of teeth sink into her side.

She screamed and was thrown through the air, crashing back down to earth with a groan. She had a glimpse of greasy blood - her blood, dribbling down the creature's parted jaws. She reached for the saber hilt, concentration split between the creature's menacing advance and the Jade saber shifting forward at her summon. The hilt slid a few feet, the blade burning a charred track into the ground, but wouldn't come to her hand.

She began to feel true fear.

...

Kylo had stopped thinking. Thoughts were extraneous in battle. The dark side demanded preservation of self, yet he rushed in without a single idea of what to do when he heard her screaming in pain. The only thought that punctured his concentration was getting between her and whatever was hurting her.

Jaina. Jaina. Jaina.

He ignored the enclosure of the hot maw around him. Fetid breath gusted over his face and upper body. Teeth sank deep into him, tearing muscle and flesh and still he persisted, driving his lightsaber into the hound's throat. He felt his arm go nearly nerveless, as the shaking maw trembled, choking on a low whine. Then, the small red eyes flickered, the life dying in them.

He pushed it away, shoving with the Force. The Tuk'ata crashed to the ground, the interior of its charred flesh exposed where it met the ragged ruff of fur. The loss of blood suddenly hit him hard as he staggered sideways. Jaina scrambled up to her feet unevenly, grimacing as her torso straightened. He glimpsed the tattered cloth welded to the weeping edges jagged from the shape of teeth. Her skin was gradually bruising a sickly purple streaked red. She grappled with him, taking the lightsaber away before it could fall from his hand.

For minutes, neither spoke. Her hands traveled shakingly over his injuries to his face. She was a teary mess, close to breaking down and crying. He felt the superficial sting from where she healed him where she could. He pushed her hands away, indicating they needed to keep moving. Wordlessly, she moved to his left side, taking on the burden of his weight. Precariously, they lurched from side to side. For some reason, she carried his lightsaber hilt in her free hand instead of her own, the beam cautiously shuttered off.

Jaina kept her eyes fixated on the ground ahead, worrying her bottom lip to pieces. He felt her grimace, each step sending a fresh spasm through his body. Kylo tried to keep his visceral reaction minimal, pushing barriers against his own pain to keep it from leaching through.

They had cleared two long stretches before he shook his head slightly.

He couldn't go any farther.

His wounds burned like fire, it took all his effort and more not to collapse where he was standing. Kylo had thrived on pain for so long, he simply couldn't say why the methods he had relied upon to sustain himself, were failing. Jaina dragged him over to fallen masonry, her face haggard with exhaustion. Together, they nearly collapsed upon it, gasping.

"The bag?" Jaina asked without much hope.

He jerked his head in the direction he thought it was, seeing spots before his eyes. After offering to carry it some ways back, he remembered tossing it aside to free up his movements during the fight.

"I'll go get it." She backed away from him, tottering on her feet. Jaina pressed his lightsaber hilt into his hand. He watched her shift into a Force-run, realizing only then that she was unarmed. He closed his eyes briefly, breathing shallowly through his dry mouth.

She came back, clutching the bag to her chest. It could've been minutes, an hour, an eternity. She checked over the supplies, separating a roll of Nu-skin, the bacta spray that wasn't nearly enough for both of them. "I think I heard water running not far," she said, looking at the supplies, seeming to not see them. She was dazed still, her fingers clumsy trying to assess the split from his shoulder extending to his chest. The bleeding had stopped, that was something, but Kylo remembered their spines were poisoned.

He was certain he was poisoned. He was chilled, feverish in shadow. The slow throbbing pulse of exposed flesh was curiously hot, burning, despite the cold numbness down from the radius to his fingertips. Jaina was stupid enough to waste the tiny medkit on him, leaving a roll of gauze for her own injury. She was pierced, she likely rationalized and flung away like a piece of meat. He took the brunt of the hound's jaws to save her. He was Kylo Ren, the one who stoppered up the hole in her chest from eating up everything that made her fundamentally Jaina, and he was the cause.

"I did it."

The words left his lips. He knew he had to say it. The likelihood of dying increased as time went on. Once he would've admitted it without a second thought, but he didn't say it before. He was...afraid of saying it. Her hatred ran deep, burned hotter than her anger. He thought it could turn her against him, but it was either that or let her go. Facing the truth... it was harder than when he demanded it of those around him.

He needed to say it. No more secrets. He was tired of fighting it. All his life there had never been anyone like her. There is no one like her in the galaxy. He knew that now.

"I gave the order. Those pilots-" he didn't care about their memory. All he cared about was her. Jaina looked at him, really looked into his eyes. "I know," she whispered. "I know already." Her voice thick with misery made him feel a thousand times worse than angered recriminations. Worse than the realization she could save herself and let their murderer die.

"I'm sorry." For a moment, he was Ben Solo. Kylo Ren never felt remorse. He knew that about himself. Ben wasn't some distant memory he could keep burying inside. Kylo Ren filtered emotions through his mind like the distant noise of a high wind, letting himself experience only that which was useful. Ben was different, he remembered what it was like to love someone, to feel remorse and horror at his actions. He almost wanted to keep being Ben Solo again for her.

Her confusion bled into him. Jaina didn't know what to do with this side of him. There was pain in her eyes and a dozen other things that didn't belong there. She wasn't the woman from her memories, the vibrantly alive, happy woman who had found a tiny place for herself. His apology made the tears fall. She could sense how sorry he was inside once the barrier was gone. He wanted her to know it, purposefully letting her in, all but pushing it into her mind. Maybe he did, the forcefulness was part of him. He needed her to understand without words, the regret that only she could make him feel, heavy like a dark stone in his heart.

The only thing he could do was awkwardly hold her in his arms, leaning close, closer until he could press his forehead to hers. Hold her so tightly, he knew it hurt them both. The woman who shunned comfort from his mother, remained stiff in his arms. Her arms lifted finally when she realized he wasn't going to let go, hugging him back just as fiercely. Is this what forgiveness feels like? They looked into each other's eyes. He felt her old grief slipping away. She was close to smiling through her tears, lips parted in exhalation.

He kissed her without hesitation.

...

Finally, she thought.

The lightest pressure of his lips on hers and she was lost. Jaina held onto him awkwardly, feeling the warm wetness of his blood seep into her clothing. I'm not going to lose you. Whether she thought it or said it aloud didn't matter. Fear and suffering led to the dark side, she knew it, but was beyond caring. She saw defeat in his eyes when they broke apart; he tried to hold onto her, but she slipped through his hands. Jaina felt it in the Force, the ebb of his strength and grabbed at anything she could reach. Her eyes filled with useless, stupid tears.

"No...no!" It wasn't fair at all. She wanted to scream at the world in hatred. She had someone waiting for her, she had what she wanted most in her hands - only to lose it all because of fear. She pressed her hand to the wound, she had to trust in something. If the Jedi wouldn't see his moment of regret as a sign of the choke hold the dark side maintained over him, lessening, then she would believe for him. After all the doubt had been cast on young Ben Solo; someone needed to stand up for him.

"I don't know what to do! Kylo, tell me what to do!" Jaina knew she wasn't making sense anymore, panic gripped her. She knew next to nothing about true Force healing. The little she knew came from watching him.

They haven't taught me Force healing...,

Did they ...know what was going to happen...? Words of Yoda's went through her mind when he had spoken about Force visions in the past.

...run from your fate, will you? Change your predetermined path, the harder it is.

"Destiny arrives anyway." She whispered and looked upon the grandson of Darth Vader, the Jedi Killer, the murderer and thought herself less of a Jedi padawan for being afraid to lose him.

...

Hours later, Saskia sat in the lounge, dusty and tired, having gone through every inch of the Starfall with the droid's help. BB-9e was busy analyzing the make of the piece of spy tech, occasionally beeping out comments. "Alright, enough commentary. Who placed it here..." She could guess. She knew it with nearly as much certainty whose head would come up under suspicion.

"V'lane."

The droid looked up at her soft exclamation.

She was jumping to conclusions. Saskia slapped her palms together. Of course, it could've been anyone aboard the Dauntless. Maker knew it could even be Miura. Yet her suspicions turned pensive. It had been a number of years since she had gathered intel on the whereabouts of Admiral Gilad Pellaeon. The former Imperial had thrown his lot in with alien Grand Admiral Thrawn, once the latter had returned after the failed siege of Lothal. Thrawn's return had caused infighting due to his criticism of the Shadow Council's plan.

Niruan, part of the Chiss Ascendancy, was an important station in their rearmament program. She supposed until General Pryde had begun orbital bombardment, they were under the impression their enemy was the New Republic.

Pellaeon was assumed to have been KIA along with all the Imperial Remnant's top command.

She remembered her datadisk being mysteriously erased following a sector malfunction aboard ship. Without it, she had no hard evidence to present to Snoke regarding the former Imperials. That is until now...,

Treason was punishable by death.

V'lane kissing her, waiting for her to come back from missions that meant nothing to her, went through her mind. I felt it, she thought fiercely. I felt it through the Force, he loves me.

It's not...all in my head, right?

She closed her eyes, burying her face in her hands. The little droid observed her steadily, rolling a little closer until it bumped her leg. She wanted to laugh feeling the nudge of the tin can's spherical body. There was she was, light years away from him and he was the only one she thought about, never mind Jaina and Ren trapped on a Sith planet. Not to mention a droid was trying to comfort her.

The device lay on the table. She should report it to General Hux, to anyone outside of herself and a droid. They needed to know a spy had infiltrated the First Order, but..., She couldn't believe she was doing it, even entertaining the thought. It was Jaina who bore the blame. Without Snoke's voice constantly in her head, she felt less pull to the dark side. She was starting to see it had nothing to offer her. Lowering her hands from her face, she curled her right fist, Force-crushing it.

"Maker, I guess fools really do fall in love." She looked down at BB-9e, who rolled backward at her next words. "if you weren't her droid, I'd throw you out the airlock." Just so that no one would know or have cause to suspect...,

...

"Plagueis! Darth Plagueis!" The name was a charm. Say it enough and the dead would hear it beyond the veil. A chill swept down her spine. Jaina glimpsed the Muun's hooded form shimmer from deeper darkness.

"You call for me and no one else. I must confess, I am surprised, Jaina. Why?" The Muun's yellow eyes flickered over Kylo, calculatingly.

She grimaced, refusing to think of the Jedi now. She had...good intentions... Ignoring the Sith's leer, her voice was steadier than she thought it would be.

"What's wrong with him?"

"He was poisoned, dear girl, just like you are. The toxin is lethal. Administered as it was, the pathway is already racing toward his vital organs. You can save him and yourself."

"How?"

"Transfer your life force into him. The technique is one method my unfaithful apprentice would say was an ability considered by some to be unnatural. There is an alternative to it however."

Dark Transfer...

"I could drain the life force of the planet into him." She remembered the fruit reflecting her transfer of energy. "I'm capable of it, right?"

The Muun's yellow eyes glinted from deep inside his hood. "So you know."

"Yes." She looked down at her clenched fist, moving her hand to the ground. I was wrong, this is my test, not the dark side cave. Am I willing to destroy sentient life for him? The moment her hand hovered over the soil, she exhaled sharply. Consitor Sato had fine-tuned her senses to the ripe, growing life within the planet. Jaina felt it respond to her touch, respond to the light. She lifted her hand to her breast after a long moment.

"It's not mine to take."

Kylo caught her wrist.

She gasped, barely able to make out his words.

"Don't...not for me."

Plagueis said nothing as she lifted her hand to the wound. She hated causing him pain as her Force slipped inside blood vessels, tracing the path of the venom. When she found it, she halted its advance, surrounding it in a temporary sheathe of energy, doing the same for herself. After a brief time, she slipped her bloodstained hand to her lightsaber hilt.

I'm not skilled enough...Jaina felt lightheaded from the exertion. Lifting her eyes challengingly to the Muun, she glimpsed slight approval as she straightened.

"I've stopped it. But, I can't heal it as it is." Thumbing the switch, the beam shot forward. She pointed it at the Sith ghost. "Was Snoke lying about the Jedi crystal?"

"It's there among other relics from a distant age."

She tried to compose her racing thoughts. She needed to focus and hurry. Opening her palm downward at her side, she reached for her need to protect, letting it flow through her Force connection. Touching multiple plant roots, Jaina drew them up through the surface behind her.

Green shoots broke through the ground, solidifying into a tangled barrier. She faced the Sith ghost defiantly. "Show me the fastest way to get there."

…

Hidreck arrived first.

Duma had received her late message while breakfasting on the third day since Jaina had left. The commander was young, pretty in a severe way in the sharp black uniform of rank. Duma wondered about the logic behind sending two Star Destroyers to the same location, figuring Hux must've been interested in something the backwater planet was developing.

"We're two parsecs away from arrival." Noventa informed him when he arrived on the bridge.

He nodded, that was good. The sooner Hidreck cleared up the whole mess about Spiftz, the sooner they could return and the higher ups would approve his accumulated shore leave. It was common news shipboard that the First Order had recently taken over the kingship on Mon Cala, making it safe for travel. Maybe a deep dive on Mon Cala to see the colorful sea life would cheer her up. With his mind on travel arrangements, Duma wasn't paying as much attention to the radar monitors as he usually did.

Noventa's exclamation of surprise took him from his thoughts.

Beyond the viewports, a maze of debris drifted in space. Farther, the distant blue marbleized orb of Minfar was in the shadow of its star. "Where is Commander Hidreck?" Duma snapped to attention. He hadn't expected to find the aftermath of battle awaiting them. Noventa was sweating profusely, "it looks like a skirmish occurred. But how? The Resistance scum is dead!"

Duma held back from reminding his Lieutenant that the fires of rebellion weren't so easily quenched. Darkly, he considered the possibility of an ambush which saw Spiftz and Hidreck's ships and crews decimated. All of that spoke of a secret Resistance fleet that the First Order knew nothing about. Or…Thrawn's Imperial Remnant had finally emerged from hiding. Duma's mind drifted back to the first time he'd met the alien Admiral to the last time he had seen Loress Jade enemy and friend of the Chiss Ascendancy.

"Sir, our short range scanners detect a ship on the other side of the planet's ice ring. Specs suggest it's a Star Destroyer!" A monitor from the radar station exclaimed. Another in the bridge pit, intercepted a transmission.

"The ship...they're making contact." The minor officer hesitated, uncertain how to explain the readouts from his screen. "The ident code is from the days of the Empire."

So it's begun.

...

"I've been here before." Part of her could scarcely believe she'd finally found it.

The immense rockcut doorway opened into a vast echoing rectangular chamber. Portions of the roof had collapsed inward, allowing murky light to seep into the interior. She had the sense of steps leading up into the meditation room. Down below, openings led into separate chambers. Jaina walked up to the flight of crumbling steps, past overturned braziers of Bronzium corrupted into rusted heaps of metal.

Her hand slid to the saber hilt. Lifting it upward, she ignited the beam. Shafts of ruby light splashed the worn edges of the steps ahead of her. She felt the reverent hush of dark side energies lying in wait around her.

I know it.

A searing pain ripped through her head.

She shut her eyes tightly, imagery flashed through her mind.

She saw an Imperial yacht.

A security droid piloted them through a broken hypertunnel. Someone sat beside the droid, gloved hands on her shoulders, to her immediate left, a strange triangular cube rested in place of a star map. Wires extended into the surface of the cube, tracing their path through collapsed stars.

She smelled the sweet sickly scent of decay beneath his robes.

"Are you sure this is the right thing to do?" Her mother's soft voice came from behind Jade. She longed to turn her head to see her, to look at her in her youth, but couldn't. Jaina remained rooted in place, forced to memorize the Wayfinder's map.

"Darth Sidious used the Dark Force religion to his own ends."

She saw them fight side by side, slaying the remaining priests of the temple. Mara had only to lift her hand and flame burst forth, igniting their flesh from within. Jaina stared at her, the slim dancer's form, the loose dark hair spilling over shoulders. She wore a sleeveless leather top over belted pants. The blue light saber in her hand wove a devastating path of destruction through the room.

Seemingly within minutes it was over.

She turned and saw herself as a small child. Kaytuueso held her hand and with the other, had occasionally blasted men off their feet with a built-in hand cannon. Jaina saw herself gasp and try to hide her face against the droid's metal leg. She remembered letting go of something in her hand, feeling it slip from her grasp, hitting the floor.

Kaytuu's grip was iron, the droid pulled her with him, striding to his masters.

"Wait-"

She strained after the fallen item, but the grownups were talking above her. Little Jaina caught a close-up glimpse of a dead acolyte's slack mouth and staring eyes, his upper half was dismembered from the rest of his body. The smell of bodily waste, blood and charred flesh flooded her nostrils.

She shied away instantly, feeling the same gorge rise in her stomach as she looked about her now in the darkness. Holding the lightsaber up to light her path, she retraced her steps past the skeletal remains left behind to the place where she and Kaytuu had waited.

Jaina crouched down, lowering the saber down. The red glow bathed the floor in crimson radiance, within the illumination, she saw the vague figural shape covered in lichen.

It's there...

She picked it up, recognizing the carved face, the jointed legs crooked from age. "Stormy." Her grasp tightened around the lost toy. "That was no vision, it was a memory." Placing the doll in the bag slung over her shoulder, she looked to the steps and began walking.

…

Kylo drifted in and out of consciousness. His hand twitched at his side, fingertips feverishly wandering, searching for someone who wasn't there. Of course she was gone, a voice in his mind whispered. She wasn't coming back. She had the communicator, she had her lightsaber and Saskia would return for her. Kylo knew the voice well. It was the voice that whispered his parents didn't want him, it was the voice that counseled Ben Solo when his master threatened his sleep. It was Snoke's voice. The other voice that used to speak to him was Darth Vader when he felt most lost on his path.

Kylo was used to heeding the voices.

The voices had never lied to him until now.

He wasn't sure if it was a feeling or a sense anymore. He knew it the same way he felt his mother's forgiveness the day she had surrendered herself to the First Order.

Jaina was coming back.

She wasn't leaving him behind the way others had done all his life.

The voice was silent for a time, perhaps surprised at the strength of his conviction. Then it found something to completely undo his belief.

You fool, she does these things because she is a Jedi.

He opened his eyes at that, dazedly staring up at the interlocked linoid arms of briarwood. The wild flora fed by her Force, radiated the same peculiar mixture of light and dark energy over him.

He still remembered her pushing the lightsaber - his lightsaber into his hand, leaving herself unarmed so soon after the battle.

No one would ever do it for Kylo Ren, no one would dream of risking their life for Ben Solo.

The trust he'd held for so long in the voices was broken.

"Liar."

Rey was meant to be a Jedi. Rey wanted to kill him more than once, he had sensed it long ago on Starkiller Base and been fascinated with her hatred. But Jaina who had more than one reason to despise him, hadn't let her hatred cloud her feelings. He remembered her admission of the light side ghosts. Even if she thought she was a Jedi, no Jedi would save a Jedi Killer.

"I don't care what she thinks she is or can be. It doesn't matter. I think I…,"

…

On the Interceptor, Captain Windrider thought of Alderaan. The Gilad Pellaeon, larger than Imperial class ships, outfitted with a hybrid series of TIE craft battered the aged Tarkin. He thought of the majestic mountain ranges, the crystal clear air and crown jewel of galactic cities of his youth. He said as much to Rose. Only someone who had witnessed the destruction of their home planet first hand could appreciate the visuals relayed through the projector.

"They're trying to run away." She commented; he hummed at that.

"As well they should be."

Ah, the Tarkin…prepping for light speed. He could see the last of their TIE Wing helpless in the throes of the dark side, ripped through by cannon fire. They hadn't had many fighters, perhaps with a full accompaniment, they could've taken down more of Fel's forces. Alone, however, surrounded by the vast debris ring of wreckage left behind by Hidreck's Star Destroyer, their doom was spelled by the bridge crew. He eagerly thought he could see when the ship lost its shields, when its main power converter was hit, ending any hope of making the jump to safety. Duma was an intelligent sort, Nash was willing to admit, once that was done with, Duma would've resumed plans for evacuating to a nearby planet.

Rose leaned forward, spotting the stream of small ships evacuating from a different hangar bay. "Those are transports."

Yes, they were…being targeted gradually by the remaining clawcraft.

"The Tarkin," he commented to Rose. "was posthumously named for Governor Tarkin, onetime Commander of the Battlestation Death Star. They decimated Alderaan in the full test of the station's might. You know…I've always despised that ship." His gaze flickered to the holotank as the automatics detonated within the Tarkin's hangar, ripping floors and part of its superstructure away. "It was Rax's decision to honor Wilhuff Tarkin in that way."

...

Her memory stopped at the threshold of the meditation chamber. Jaina held the lightsaber in front of her, casting a twisted shadow on the slime-covered walls. The odor of decay was rampant the further she went. She breathed through her mouth shallowly, advancing to the end of the room. Through another doorway, she glimpsed shifting shadows that murmured amongst themselves.

"I feel your power." One spoke to her from the babble of voices.

She glanced once over her shoulder into the darkness behind her. I've gone too far to stop now, she thought, stepping into the room. All the shadows fled save for one. Beyond the cloaked figure, she could barely see the outline of another doorway.

"What do you seek?"

Jaina kept silent; the cold intensified, permeating through the outer layer of her suit. She could see no way around him. How does one go about defeating a ghost? She wished she'd asked Plagueis what to do when encountering any of his brethren.

"Do you seek to know the future?"

It's now or never. She swept into a charge suddenly - the ghost rose up, right hand claw-like at his side. The Force seizing her throat held none of the malevolence she once felt from Kylo.

It was...familiar.

"I see everything. The past, the present and the future. Do you seek my guidance?" The cloaked figure turned around, garments rustling around his form. The face surrounded by the heavy cowl-like hood, drew a measure of revulsion from her soul for it was human. Dark side corruption twisted the strong features, the heavy brow and aquiline nose into cavernous pits. Only his eyes remained, blue and piercing, the third opened, revealing an orb of Sith hue.

"Darth Millennial!" Jaina choked out in horror for now she knew why it was familiar to her; Millennial's Force was like her own. The how or why were questions she preferred never answered. The Sith ghost regarded her with detached curiosity, elevating her several feet off the ground.

I need to hurry - Jaina thought of Kylo, panicked. I'm going to lose him.

Millennial gestured with his outstretched fingertips. "I have asked you twice, what is your purpose for seeking out this temple?"

"Not this." She felt the pressure tighten on her throat. "I'm here for something that doesn't belong to you."

…

Poe viewed the destruction from the cockpit. It was the same as with Hidreck's ship. Smoke poured from the breached hull, intermittent explosions rocked the narrow form. From one of the auxiliary bays, he watched a stream of transports hurriedly exit, turning for the planet.

Poe relived Holdo's sacrifice.

He saw the salt planet again.

He felt the fear and helpless anger as friends and comrades blew up around them.

He patched into the Gilad Pellaeon's command center.

"Captain Fel, requesting permission for pursuit."

BB-8's head swiveled from him to the domed cockpit window.

Fel took a moment longer to answer.

Poe's Rapier 1 hovered stationary, waiting. "You said no prisoners. The First Order showed us no mercy and wouldn't hesitate to do the same to your people."

Jagged Fel recognized the armored transports as belonging to the Stormtrooper units. He knew some of them held officers. Upper command who would flee the dying ship. He imagined Enric Pryde's Steadfast leading the bombing run on the Imperial outpost. He couldn't feel the Force at all in the cramped confines of the Imperial shuttle, but he could see Loress Jade's clenched fists, his absolute concentration fixated rigidly on the TIE fighters gaining on them.

Would it ever be enough? Would he ever feel his parents were at rest?

"Permission granted." He said, closing his eyes as the first line of transports took on heavy fire.

...

Jaina gritted her teeth to hold her screaming back; apparently most Sith ghosts weren't pleased when you turned them down. Millennial's dark side power painted shadows around, dark hues of purple and blue wove a tapestry of the future. She felt herself teetering on the brink of madness. This was beyond pain - he's trying to break my mind as punishment for entering his temple. She forced her eyes open, staring hatefully into the dead Sith's flickering gold-hued eyes.

There's nothing in my head that'll serve him much purpose.

She made herself open up part of her memories, missions, faces, a dozen different worlds during the skirmishes with the New Republic. Jaina felt Millennial's power seep into the crack in her armor, the pain intensifying. She pushed herself forward with the Force, unresisting the body bind as she hovered upright. Then, she reached out tendrils of her inner Force unnoticed around the Sith's own power until she was inside him.

Uncontrolled images flooded her head.

The Huntress, the red-skinned Ikotchi. Beautiful, diseased from decades of dark side immersion. The name came into her head. Cognus.

"Master Cognus." Former Masters Bane and Zannah. Jaina felt the depth of the mutant's knowledge, vast stores of dark side rituals, pathways to tap into the future. She had visions of Dromund Kaas sinking into degradation, a haunted ruin. She saw her grandfather kneeling to the Sith ghost, receiving instruction in the ways of divining the future. She saw him presenting a cloth bag of rough jewels that possessed the fire of the sun; presenting her.

"Great Ancestor."

Her skin crawled as the ghost stroked her child-self's face.

She had the impression of a storeroom filled with ancient weaponry and statues of robed figures, stones carved with runic script.

Millennial's conscious stream of memories reverted back to his master, now a shadow of herself, Cognus and the others had been summoned. Someone - Jaina felt her body fall away. She was air, she was darkness, she was with the Banite line. A thousand years of dead Sith stood arrayed, raised by the chanting of faceless hooded beings.

She saw the empty throne made of jagged stone thorns rising menacingly toward a dark, lightning streaked sky.

She saw the dead planet and knew why it was so.

The thing she could not see and had been called forth from the netherworld to bear witness to its resurrection by the faithful, took its first few tottering steps –

Millennial became aware of her repugnance, her sheer horror permeating the consciousness he had left. In retaliation, Millennial fought off her invasion with pain. Jaina saw his third eye rolling madly in its socket. The memory began to fade despite her best attempts to hold onto it and see more.

"Who…is that?" She whispered, conscious of her lips moving, forming the words. Her hand shot out for his face. For a moment the cold gelatinous substance of his being felt like human flesh, then her Force clawed into him - it was only a second, a moment that felt like an eternity that she overcame his hatred, the source of his power. But it wasn't enough. Millennial tossed her away from him. Jaina flew back, striking the wall covered in arcane symbols. When she picked herself up off the floor, the Sith ghost was gone.

…

The dark side wasn't helping her.

"Feel the Force."

She huffed in frustration. Remembering Luke now wasn't going to help. Saskia could picture them listening to him as he explained basic meditation, the same way he had learned from Master Yoda on Dagobah. She remembered their irreverent giggles when he described R2-D2 hitting the ground, chewing him out in binary afterward.

The occasional helpful beep from across the room wasn't helping either. She cracked open one eye to glare at the droid peeping in from the doorway. "I'm trying to concentrate, droid." The BB unit trilled something cheekily that she couldn't understand but rotated backward, out of sight.

She needed to center herself; focus on one thing. Saskia's senses had been inundated with pollution from the dark side nexus within a nexus on the planet. She closed her eyes again, deciding to try something different.

"Reach out with your feelings."

She reached for the light. It was always there, maybe not so brilliant or strong, but it had something she needed.

Jaina. Focus on Jaina.

She started to feel her presence – not with Ren as she had expected but connected to him, far from him. There was such darkness surrounding the light at the center, it threatened to engulf it. It was madness. It was...

Something was wrong.

She felt herself descending to the planet's surface – passing over Ren as a thin thread of light within chaos, she had only to open her eyes and she was there – standing inside an ancient stone hall, slime and lichen spread rot down the walls. A hooded, cloaked figure emanated a hellish red glow as his outstretched hand less decayed flesh than bone, seized her throat. Saskia gagged reflexively, the scream inside her mind not her own. She pulled away from the Sith ghost's hold, terrified, a sense of blinding darkness thrusting her out of Jaina's head. Saskia had a brief glimpse of a crumbling edifices, greenery and then it was gone.

"The Force will give you everything you need to protect."

Saskia snapped out of her trance and landed hard on the deck. The droid's photoreceptor eye clicked, capturing her fall. "It's okay! I'm alright," she muttered, from the other side of the table. Resurfacing, she looked at the droid. "I know where they are."

...

...so many of them.

Slowly, Jaina moved around the tables laden with the bounty of centuries. Dimly, from the saber's glow, she glimpsed statues of hooded figures, swords, shields scattered everywhere, ancient tech lined one wall. Among them, she heard the faint whisper of betrayal, the din of bloodshed - The atmosphere thickened with the scent of copal burning in star-shaped censers.

She turned around and came face to face with her mother. "This is a memory." Jaina whispered, her excitement rose nonetheless. She had never seen her so clearly before. Now she was better able to appreciate the resemblance they shared as Mara went past her. Jaina lowered the lightsaber to her side, watching as the room lightened. Her mother knew the temple well. She walked confidently into the center of the room, speaking as she went. "I was taught here under Supreme Prophet Kadaan's tutelage. All the Emperor's Hands received such training." She carried a cloth sack lumpy with objects luminescent with light side radiance.

"I never thought this would become the resting place for one of the greatest treasures of the Jedi Order." Mara placed the bag inside the mouth of a statue. The bag clinked from within the hollowed out interior. The face of the statue was heavily bearded, the features reminiscent of Millennial in life...his mouth was open, pronouncing prophecies.

Jaina's child-self studied her reflection in a polished shield, then followed Mara to the back of the room.

She looked at the effigy of the Sith Lord towering over her mother and shied away from it.

"I didn't like looking at it even then." Jaina saw through the overlay of memory to the far back wall where the statue stood flanked by two others who clutched lightsaber hilts. "Grandfather had a circle of statues in his meditation chamber. He used to say they represented our ancestors."

"No one would ever think to look here for them." Somebody said dismissively behind her. "When it's time, she can come and retrieve them. She knows the way now."

"It's not too late, father. We can still go to Caprica. We can keep her safe, both of us, please." Desperation crept into Mara's voice. "I don't care if he said it was the only way. Leaving her there is the same as giving her to Snoke!"

"In all his days, Millennial never prophesied false. Hiding light within darkness until day is strong enough to reclaim the night." The old man recited. "It's clear what he speaks of...there is no other way."

"She's my daughter! If only Luke-" Mara broke off with a breath that stopped short of a sob. Jaina started violently at the name, her mind racing. Surely there were others with that name, her mother couldn't mean- at the same time, she felt the strands of memory slipping from her. The vision grew hazy at the edges, receding into a dull murmur of color. She wanted to hear more. She stared at the youthful figure of her mother, wishing her child-self hadn't been interested in a shiny necklace of oroweave draped across a faceless bust.

Her grandfather spoke then, sounding as if he was underwater.

"Do you think I want you to experience the same pain I felt when the Grand Inquisitor found you on Caprica? Sidious raised you alongside his worthless son in the Imperial Palace. I gave you my strength, but he made you what you are."

"No." She could feel herself pulling back from it. Something was wresting it from her own mind, tucking it away into the secret place where the rest of her memories were hidden. Although only minutes had passed, she felt she had learned something solid and real about herself to replace the brief lifetime of assumptions.

"No." She called on the Force uncaring if her motives were selfish. She pleaded with it when the light urged a gentle release. "Please. Please let me see her, just a little bit longer." I didn't see her for sixteen years of my life. She couldn't even see colors anymore.

"No!" With her sudden shout, the floor split beneath her feet, but Jaina didn't care. Disjointed pieces became one and she was back in the temple again, reliving the memory through her own eyes. Their positions had changed in those few seconds of disconnect. Her mother had ignited her blue lightsaber, extending her hand to Jaina. She had made her appeal moments before, and Jaina all of ten years old, hesitated.

Jade stood in front of her mother, deep sadness in his muffled voice. Slightly stooped from age, he was clad in desert garments, black and crimson disguised the corrupted form. "Lor San Tekka knows already and has told him about our bloodline."

"No – how did he—"

"He found the prophecy kept by the Guardians of the Whills."

The words were meaningless to her. But the name…Tekka…she had heard it before…

"You didn't destroy it on Jedha?" Mara whispered, horrified.

"I…I didn't…the Jedi taskforce arrived and I was barely able to escape with my life. But that's neither here nor now." Jaina looked up at him, at the gloved hand he extended to her. "Knowing what I've told you now, if you go to him, you'll undo everything that we've done to keep her safe." Jaina slipped her small hand into his, feeling for the first time, the familiar metallic grip beneath the padded fingertips.

"On Chandrila, you called out to me for help, you didn't reach out to him." Jade had a familiar hilt in his other hand; it was the lightsaber he had used to cut down the priests, it was the same lightsaber she held now. He offered it to her mother for safekeeping. Her mother never looked ashamed for the things she had done; but at that moment, her eyes filled with defeat as she took the hilt he offered.

"I did, but he never came."

...

The lightsaber sheared through the statue, sending the opposite half crashing to the floor. Jaina snatched at the bag coated with thick dust, the brief contact of her fingertips to the trigonal lumps, sent a resonant wave into her hand. It went through her head briefly my mother was the last one who touched them. Loosening the rotted drawstring tie sealing the opening, the stones clinked together musically, exposed for a moment to her eyes. They were rough in shape, orange flames appeared to dance within the six-sided prisms crowned by clustered pyramids. There were five of them, peacefully emanating light. Jaina scooped them up, depositing them within her bag.

She turned and went for the stairs, hearing the grating of stone against stone, the distinct hum of lightsabers igniting.

Dark Jedi guardians...

Stone automatons brought to life by Sith alchemy...

Hand wrapped around the hilt of the Jade saber, she swung it behind her. The beam flared to life, blocking the two blades swinging for her unprotected back. They pulled off and she spun around, force-kicking one while countering the high swing coming for her head.

The sabers they wielded were an unmatched pair of yellow and blue. Something in their faces reminded her of the living. Repulsed, Jaina put distance between them. "I don't have time to deal with you." She hissed, sweeping them off their feet with a Force-shove. The pair toppled clumsily to the bottom of the stairwell into a deeper pool of shadow. The glow of the fallen blades caught the shifting motion below. Jaina lifted her lightsaber higher, confirming her suspicions. The stone they were made from, reformed before her eyes.

This just keeps getting better and better...,

Retreating quickly to higher ground, Jaina had a sudden idea as her right foot skidded off a broken moss-covered step. Catching herself precariously with one knee bent, she thrust her palm toward the slime-covered wall, urging the moss to grow - grow. She reached for the profusion of roots sprouting through a cracked portion of the ceiling, shouting the word in her mind. Grow!

Green sprouted forth in response to her demand, lunging for the limbs of the guardians. The moment their arms were grappled backward with the immediate danger of their blades removed, Jaina leapt to her feet. With a wild cry, she slashed across their bodies, stone felt for an instant like flesh. They gave no cry under the duress of her Form I strikes. Their lightsabers hit the steps, bouncing down harmlessly. Jaina saw the fragments of stone rattle and Force-crushed the remains. Once, she glimpsed the waxy substance clinging to human bone in the glow of her lightsaber - fisting her free hand once more, she reduced the remains to powder. She refused to think of ancient Sith alchemical secrets, the spells Millennial and his followers had practiced. "Ancestor." Her skin crawled; summoning the lightsabers to her, she flicked their switches and placed them inside her bag. "Even their dust will probably wander." She surveyed the remnants of the Temple's guardians somberly, then started running.

The rain had begun to fall during the brief time she was in the Dark Force Temple. The water tasted bitter, running in rivulets down her face, washing away the dust from Millennial's stronghold. She was soaked by the time she reached the belt of trees, hair dripping from the sad remains of her bun. Her footing was less sure the farther she went. Exhaustion wore down the adrenaline in her system. She felt her limbs heavy, sluggishly responding to the demands she placed upon her body. Leaping over fallen tree trunks, she landed hard, sending a fresh spatter of mud outward. Jaina's bruised feet protested this fresh abuse. Almost...silently, she promised her body that rest would come, but not now.

She found him slumped against the outgrowth of flora. His black hair was plastered by the rain, one arm was slung over his abdomen, hand pressed flat to the wound. He was hyperventilating, breath a white cloud from his parted lips.

"You came back."

Jaina dropped down beside him in the cold mud. Instead of answering, she slipped the bag off her shoulder, rummaging around its contents until her hand closed around one of the stones. A familiar flare of warmth seeped into her cold skin. Jaina breathed in the wet smell of petrichor flavored with the scent of sodden alien plant life.

She drew the crystal out, her enclosed fist opening up to reveal its glimmering iridescent surface. They looked at it together and then she pressed it into his grasp. The crystal flickered gently between his fingertips but did nothing. "Why isn't anything happening?!" Panic rose up, she started to reach for the bag, thinking of the remaining four crystals when he grabbed her wrist, pulling her closer.

Their palms slid together wetly, his hold clinging, feverish. Jaina gripped his hand back just as tightly; the Force moved between them, luminescent and pure. The scratches she didn't remember over bare arms, a slice across her cheek stung, sealing with ponderous difficulty. Jaina reached with her free hand for his face.

The rain continued to fall around them, no longer felt – only pain— the memory of white-hot agony searing across her abdomen returned. She blinked back tears, her sight blurring. She wanted to let go of his hand, crumple her body up around the phantom injury. She was whole, she wasn't sliced open, dying on the floor. Her mouth parted, but no sound came out. It lasted only seconds…then it was gone.

He nodded slightly.

Her eyes drifted down in awe to the jagged tear in his tunic down to the skin. The bloodied gash had vanished as if it had never existed. Jaina released his hand and pulled at the track of her zipper, struggling to pull it open. Impatiently, he reached out and yanked it down past her naval. Their hands brushed - similar intent in pulling the soaked fabric free from her skin.

She caught her breath when his fingertips skated over her collarbone. Kylo bared her shoulder, checking to make sure nothing remained of the old burns. She saw a flash of relief in his dark eyes. He scarcely paused before pulling the upper portion of the cloth away, seeking her midriff.

Her stomach jumped in nervousness at his light probing touch. He stroked her side where the skin had been the livid color of a bruise and terribly swollen, then returned to her shoulder, his thumb pad rubbed circles on the smooth, unscarred flesh. Whatever thoughts went through his mind, they remained unspoken. Far above them, the sound of a low-flying starship reached her ears. She almost thought it was the planet tormenting her one last time for robbing the temple's treasure, yet as their eyes met, she knew he heard it too.

...

Hours later, Jaina held the doll in her hands. She had cleaned it off in the 'fresher as best as she could, moving the jointed legs and arms, wiping grime from the wire holding it together. Reminiscently, she dangled the doll, manipulating the legs to move in a pantomime of walking. BB-9e had greeted her enthusiastically from the loading bay when they'd hurriedly boarded. She sensed more than saw Saskia's look to herself and Kylo. She supposed the Knight had seen them in an embrace and wondered at it. Now, BB-9e's eye clicked on the doll, recording images of it. Jaina glanced up when the Knight entered the cockpit.

"Where did you find that?" Saskia looked down at it, disgusted.

"It was in the temple." She set Stormy on the dash gently. "It used to be mine a long time ago."

"Wait...you're saying you'd been to Dromund Kaas before?" The knight gave her an incredulous look. "I don't believe it."

"They took me there."

"Who?"

"My mother and grandfather. They killed the Dark Force priests and communed with the founder of the temple. Theymade me watch when they killed them." Jaina touched the doll. "I dropped this in the temple. I found it exactly where I remembered dropping it." Her eyes lowered. "Not far from the bodies."

"But why? What would be the purpose of letting a child see bloodshed?"

She wasn't sure either. Was it to harden her resolve? To show her the things they were capable of? Or was it to show her everything they had done to keep her safe? Frustratingly, she didn't know any more than what she'd seen and felt.

"Saskia, where is Caprica?"

The Knight didn't touch her, she rested her hand on the back of the seat rest. "It's…in the Kobol Sector. It's very difficult to pass through the hypergate. The First Order hasn't bothered with them for years…it's supposedly unconquerable territory." She frowned, trying to remember something else. The memory was elusive since it wasn't something she thought of often. "Now that you mention it, I've been there before on mission." Saskia's expression darkened. "With Soramar, I think it was. No, could've been Valkyn. No, I'm certain it was with Soramar. That's where he…,"

"He found my grandmother. That's what you were about to say, wasn't it?"

Saskia tried to avoid her eyes.

"What were you doing there?"

"Jaina, that was in the past." Saskia wanted to change the subject, yet she could feel Jaina's desire to know prying at her mind, trying to find a way in through her mental defenses. "We…I was sent to make sure the New Republic and Kobol's twelve colonies never made an accord. It was an assassination mission meant to place the blame on the New Republic." The memory replayed in her mind, she heard the echo of screams, punctuated by blaster fire. Jaina's power drew back, satisfied with what she'd seen, and Saskia found she could breathe again.

"I'm sorry." The ex-pilot said quietly. "I shouldn't have done that."

…

Ren brushed past her without a word. Saskia immediately saw his preoccupation was with Jaina, not with showing gratitude. She lingered for a moment longer in the companionway, hearing the soft murmur of their voices, then she kept going. It wasn't her business to know what they talked about.

The lights came on in the lounge when she walked in. Jaina had left the haversack she'd brought back, on the table, now stained and ripped in one corner, Saskia tossed the bag by the straps into a club chair in the corner.

Then she spotted something amiss.

A splotch of green where there should be none.

Saskia went around the curved sofa, her gaze drawn to something that had been left behind. Her first thought was the droid had left it…but where had the droid gotten a piece of growing fruit from? The rind had curled into itself baring web-like segments pocked with seeds, perfect green shoots spiraled up from them and the beginnings of tiny curled leaves drooped from spindly arms. Where had it come from? She puzzled over its singular appearance, the dry, desiccated exterior yielding to green, growing life.

That hadn't been the weirdest thing she'd noticed around Jaina and the droid.

Shrugging to herself, she carefully levitated the plant to the kitchenette off the relief crew's quarters and found a pot to place it in. Returning to the lounge, Saskia discreetly turned the holochess set on with a flick of her fingertips. BB-9e had left the cockpit since Ren had gone to sit with Jaina, rolling slowly after her. She hid a smile when the droid beeped in surprise, spotting the holomonsters on the circular board.

"Holochess is also called Dejarik. You stay there." She instructed in her usual bossy way. The droid rolled to one side of the table, while she sat across. "I warn you, droid, Radford taught me how to play and he's a master of Shah-Tezh. I don't lose easily."

The droid beeped something to the effect of big deal.

"Now each holomonster has its own health, range, attack and movements..."

…

Jaina looked up when he touched her hand. Kylo sat across from her, his hand was warm on the back of her folded fingers. She didn't speak for a moment, lifting her eyes to his. He spoke first when she hesitated. "I should've been there in the temple. You shouldn't have faced him alone."

"I'm alright...," Was she? Jaina thought with proper rest in her own room aboard the Tarkin, she might recover. Once they returned to First Order space, she could look forward to shore leave and time spent away from the armada. She could relax and see worlds she had never seen before. He had even mentioned credits for travel clothing and shoes. She thought she could think about Caprica later, what with the excitement over finally getting to pick out clothing that didn't come from a replicator machine.

"Hey, don't look at me like that." Jaina gently chided, turning her hand over to catch his fingertips. "I got to play the hero."

He looked so uncertain for a moment, that she almost laughed. Uncertainty was a rare enough emotion in him, that she cherished seeing it. Rather than answer, he interlaced their hands together. The tension on the surface of her mind evaporated away with the light pressure of his large palm against hers. Touching only confirmed his physical presence for her, confirmed they were changing with each other.

It was different than imagining holding hands, wondering how it would feel to look into his true face without the helmet. Not different, she corrected herself, a hundred times better.

"If you'll let me, I would like to touch Darth Vader's helmet sometime."

Kylo tried to contain his eagerness with a bland response. "Whenever."

Jaina knew it was a serious matter, yet her lips curved into a smile. "That doesn't mean I'm going to be your apprentice. I just want to see if he'll speak to me."

"If you want, we can return directly to my ship." She could feel in his light tone a deeper sense that he didn't want to let her go so soon. Jaina looked into his eyes, seeing a softness that had never been so readily present.

I left the Jade Sabre on the Absolution..., her mind quickly went over the details of Duma's message BB-9e had intercepted and saved for her when they were still planetbound. He said they were going to be in Wild Space…she would see him soon enough.

"Okay... I'd like that." Some of her happiness ebbed. It needed to be said even if she couldn't understand the import of what she'd seen. "Kylo, when I was in Darth Millennial's mind, there was something in his memories. The dead Sith from ages past had been summoned to a world not found on any map we possess. They were there to witness a rebirth."

-TBC

AN: I couldn't resist the Infinity War reference. I had to take a break from school to work on this chapter yesterday and today for posting. Thanks for reading! I'm probably going to incorporate a little bit from Jedi: Fallen Order after reading the storyline for the game, but not sure yet. On a side note, I'm really interested in the storyline for the 2020 Darth Vader comics! That's of course Empire era...,

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