"You have no place in this story. You come from nothing. You're nothing."

Every word Ben said seemed louder and clearer than anything anybody has ever said to her before. Each word seemed to seep its way into Rey's skin, the meaning soaring around her blood, filling her veins with the icy certainty of truth. Ben wasn't wrong. He had plucked the truth from her head but it was her own voice that had confirmed it. Her parents had no place in the giant picture of order and justice, in the war between the First Order and the Resistance. They probably hadn't cared about the greater mechanics of the universe. She had no great claim to the powers that decided the galaxy's fate.

She was just a girl from Jakku who happened to know her way around a ship, and, apparently, the force.

Except she didn't. Not really. How long had she been training with this raw power? Less than a week? Ben had been training for years. He had harnassed the powers of the Dark Side and now he stood there, still inclined towards the First Order despite killing his own master. All of that fighting together, it was for his cause now. The hope that had fluttered away in Rey's chest since Ben had split Snoke in two was now dying.

The tears rolled down Rey's cheeks. How could she have been so foolish to think that she could have turned him. Even now he was still determined. She hadn't known him long and she'd thought she could rescue him. It was arrogance. Hubris. She'd allowed herself to think that she could reach higher than she could.

This would never have happened back on Jakku. Her life there was hard but she'd never set herself up to fall so spectacularly. She'd got by, minding her own business.

Maybe she should have stayed there.

Rey pressed her lips together as the tears continued to gather in her eyes. She looked down, away from Ben Solo - no, away from Kylo Ren. That was who he was. That was the truth of it. There was no point in kidding herself anymore. She only had to replay those words in her head to know for sure.

You're nothing.

Rey inhaled, attempting to steady her breath. She could still feel Ben's eyes on her. She allowed herself the fastest glance back up into his face.

"But not to me," Ben spoke again, his voice softer and less stable now. He reached out his hand to her. "Join me," his voice was full of emotional invitation and yet Rey had never felt so closed off from him right now.

She looked into his eyes again, her gaze holding this time.

He stepped forward. "Please," his word was barely audible, full of raw desperation.

Rey shook her head. She took one step back and then another. This was a mistake. This had all been a mistake.

"Rey," Ben stepped forward again. Rey took another step back. "You and me can be the balance this galaxy needs. No Sith, no Jedi, just strength. Our power, together-"

"No, Ben." Rey felt the words digging into her throat as she said them. "That's not… I won't… I won't be part of it." She wiped at her eyes. "I'm not… I'm not going with you."

She lifted her hand and a kind of instinct took over. A powerful movement of the force rippled from her hand. It slammed into Ben's chest, forcing him backwards, into the burning wreckage of the throne room. He lay still. Rey took her chance.

She didn't wait to see if he was hurt very badly. Instead, she spun around and ran for the nearest door. Her lightsaber flew into her hand as she reached it. Not looking back, she sprinted through the door and into one of the corridors.

Alarms were blaring, troops were shouting and droids were going haywire. Explosive noises were coming from elsewhere in the ship and officers were screaming at each other. Rey hesitated where she was until she saw an air vent above her. Taking a breath, she reached out with the force. The vent grate dropped. She leaped up, propelling herself with the force. She scrambled into the vent and began to crawl quickly.

It was difficult to navigate the tunnels especially with all the noise and commotion going on below. Every time she passed a grate, she heard more running, more shouting and more blasts. Troopers were falling below her or being blasted into walls. Rey could feel waves of thick, heavy heat rolling through the vents. Rey moved some of her tunic to cover the smell of the smoke filling the corridors downwards.

Left, right, right again. She scurried through the vents. All the while her mind cast itself back to the throne room, back to Ben. Had she knocked him out? Would he be after her now? Had she killed him? What if she'd killed Leia's son? She thought about how much faith Leia had put in her. Had she wanted Rey to save Ben? Was that what she would have wanted? Would she have been hoping for her to bring him home? Rey's mind was a myriad of anxiety and panic. What if she hadn't done enough to incapacitate him? What if he followed her through the vents?

Rey stopped.

Breathe, she heard Luke's voice in her head, just breathe. Rey gave herself into the force, letting its calming presence spread through her. It began in her shoulders and swept slowly down through her body.

"REY!" Kylo's roar came from some distance away but the strength of his voice carried far too closely.

Rey snapped out of her concentration. She thought about staying in the vents but there wasn't much room and she had to get into the hangar soon. However another yell from Ben in the distance changed things. She continued to hurry through the narrow corridors. She couldn't move that fast but she had to stay hidden. She had more chance of being shot out there.

She reached a fork and stopped. To the left, the corridor was emitting tons of heat and screaming . The right was somewhat quieter. Rey began to crawl towards it. As she placed a hand forward, something shifted inside her. An urge to take the other corridor, stronger and clearer. It was as if someone had took hold of her hips and was pulling them towards the other way. She looked behind her. No one else was in the vents. She turned back towards the right. Something squirmed in her stomach, as though the force was insistent.

Rey reached up to touch her head. What was going on around here?

She shook her head and a darker, foul thought crept into her mind. What if this was Ben trying to throw her off balance? What if he was manipulating her to go one way over the other? She stopped, her hand moving to her forehead. It could be the case either way. But what if it wasn't Ben doing this? What if it was the force?

You can't keep stopping, she reasoned, he's going to catch up with you.

She began crawling again, focusing on her instincts and the Force itself. Which way? Which way? Once more, the Force guided her towards the heated corridor. This time she didn't hesitate. She moved quickly through the corridors, keeping track of the noise and the chaos going on in the corridors below. Occasionally she caught pieces of conversation. Instructions for troops to gather up and make for the hangar. Rey's heart sank as she listened to that. At this rate there was going to be a crowd gathering there. Had Ben told them to wait for her there?

It didn't matter, Rey reasoned. There was no other way to get off the ship without going through the hangar. She continued onwards, using the Force to guide her. The noise from below grew and grew as she neared the area. Finally she reached another grate in the floor. Peering through, she saw red blasts firing out of double doors. A group of troopers and officers were taken down by them. The blasts stopped and the soldiers lay still. Rey took her chance.

She pulled the grate off and swung herself down into the spacious corridor, littered with First Order corpses. Ahead of her, through the double doors, the hangar was in chaos.

Most of it was on fire and so were some of the ships. Stormtroopers were firing on a something Rey couldn't see. They were advancing in another direction. Rey stepped forward and her gaze settled on a group of people rushing up into one of the imperial shuttles. The stormtroopers continued to fire even as the ramp rose. Rey's heart lifted. The Resistance.

The ship was beginning to take off. Rey knew as soon as she moved forward that she wouldn't get there in time. She needed to find another ship.

To her right was a lone TIE-fighter, still intact. Others around it were already in flames and the fire was creeping perilously close to that one. Rey flung herself towards it, sprinting harder than she'd ever run before. She'd just reached the ship and was halfway climbing into it when something skidded into her eyeline.

Up ahead, Ben slid to a stop, his eyes wild and his hair tussled as he looked around the hangar. Rey dropped into the ship and his eyes snapped to the TIE-fighter.

Tension shot through ways, locking her muscles and freezing her expression. She was consciously aware of the Force between her and Ben, between everything, there to be manipulated by both of them. Ben had been doing this longer. He could overpower her. He could win and then she'd be stuck here. She'd had 3 days of training. Ben had been training for years. There were so many factors arguing that Ben would come out on top. He had experience on his side and had had a teacher willing to train him properly. What did Rey have? A few reluctant lessons after badgering an old Jedi hero and a natural talent for the force.

That's right, a deeper voice within Rey spoke. She didn't know who exactly it was but it was comforting. You beat him once before. You can do it again. But her own force against his, that was going to be two of the same kind of power clashing, Rey realised as her brain scrambled for tactics. She needed something to swing everything in her favour.

Like that power cell behind him, inner Rey spoke, say you blew that up. That would be pretty distracting. Or you could just blow Ben up.

Rey's hands gripped the controls in front of her. Ben was beginning to move towards her. Now was the chance. He wasn't going to turn. She should just take him out.

"It's not too late, Rey," Ben called over the noise of the inferno and the blaster fire. "You can still join me. We can make everything better."

Her thumbs brushed over the buttons of the guns. All you have to do is press them. She thought about all the people that Ben had killed, all the devastation left in his wake. More would continue if she let him live. She would be responsible for that and yet… there was conflict within him. She'd felt it. Enough conflict to make her think twice.

Her thumbs refused to budge on the buttons. The thought of killing him burned her insides. She adjusted the guns, aiming for the power cell behind him. If she couldn't kill him then she had to knock him out. She pressed down. Two blasts shot out of the guns. Rey saw Ben duck under them as they zoomed towards him. They hit the power cell with precision. Ben was straightening up when the explosion went off. He shot forwards, his body knocking against the glass window of the TIE fighter. For a moment, his eyes and Rey's met and she saw the loneliness in them, the desperation. The moment passed as he pushed himself off the ship. He landed somewhere below her vision.

Rey felt her body unclench. Instinct took over as she familiarized herself with the controls. Seconds later, the ship took off into the air. She turned and flew out into vast space.

The ship was faster than she thought, the force of it throwing her back in her seat. In those seconds, she forgot about Ben, his offer and the First Order and had to rely on her own piloting skills. She turned the ship. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Star Destroyer, torn apart by something. The ship was going down. Further out into space, the shuttle carrying her friends on was headed towards the planet below.

She tightened her grip on the controls, slowing the ship down, turning around in a large arc around the planet, ready to turn and join the Resistance below.

You come from nothing You're nothing.. Ben's words floated in her head. Nothing.

Reliving those sentences brought back tears to Rey's eyes. She thought about what she had just been through. She hadn't escaped because of mastery of the force. She hadn't beaten Ben in combat. She had survived because Ben was trying to turn her and she'd made a lucky shot. She'd had a few days of, at best, sub par training and she didn't have the experience her opponents had in battle. How could she ever have thought that she could be strong or powerful enough to stand a chance in this war? She couldn't. She'd just gotten lucky before. None of her success had really done much damage to the First Order.

Maybe she was just playing pretend. Maybe she was just kidding herself that she could join the fight or contribute anything. She couldn't talk Luke into returning. She couldn't defeat Snoke - Ben had done that. She couldn't defeat Ben. She couldn't do anything. Ben only wanted her because he thought he could mould her from nothing.

The last thing the Resistance needed was someone like her who couldn't be the hero they needed.

Rey turned the controls. Her ship began to fly faster, away from the planet, away from the wreckage of the First Order, and away from the Resistance and the war.

Away from everything.