Chapter One: Salvage

Kylo Ren felt weightless.

Mentally surfacing from a meditation was always a disorienting process. As he struggled back toward consciousness, the warm void enveloping him clarified into a tank of bacta. At first he feared he had been captured, but through the yellow haze of bacta he could see the orderly and familiar layout of a Star Destroyer. Across the room, the viewport was clouded with swirling blue as they moved at lightspeed.

He bit at the tube placed in his throat to help him breathe. He was otherwise floating naked as the bacta infused him, helping him to heal. He curled his body into a ball and then stretched, testing his joints and the movement of his muscles, awaiting the inevitable pain. But his body felt… whole. He ran a hand over his hip, his shoulder, feeling thick scar tissue that remained from his wounds. He touched his face, seeking out the tender tissue the lightsaber had burned with its near miss. Anger and embarrassment at his defeat welled in him and he leapt up, using the force to help him climb free of the bacta tank.

He landed in a crouch on the cold floor of the medical bay, and retched as he pulled the breathing tube from his throat. He looked up, his wet hair dripping into his eyes. Bacta dripped from his body, leaving him chilled as the constantly-recycled air blew across his skin, stealing his warmth; more bacta splattered across the floor as he coughed, trying to clear the foul-tasting stuff from his mouth and nose. The medical bay personnel were frozen, watching him with wide, uncertain eyes.

Ren supposed he seemed all-together too weak, too human, in that moment. He resented their stares. He hated it when anyone from the First Order looked at him when he wasn't wearing his mask. He especially despised that these had seen him at his most vulnerable, unconscious and wounded. He glared around the room, satisfied as the human personnel flinched away from his gaze.

Undaunted or merely ignorant, a medical droid shuffled over.

"Sir—you were programmed for six hours more of bacta treatment. I must insist—"

Ren waved a hand, using the Force to swat aside the droid like so much rubbish. He glanced over at the closest medical specialist. She took a step back as his eyes locked with hers.

"Which ship is this?"

"The Finalizer, Sir."

Ren smiled thinly. So the flagship had made it out of the fray after all. "Good. Inform General Hux that I need to speak to him."

She nodded, but he had already turned his attention toward more pressing matters.

"Where are my clothes?"

"Here, Master Ren." One of the orderlies pulled a sack from a drawer. Kylo gestured, and the orderly blanched as the bag flew from his hands. Ren very nearly dropped the bag, he felt so weak and uncoordinated, but he managed to smooth the fumbled catch into something resembling normalcy.

"Leave me."

Once they had fled the room, he toweled dry and dressed in his cleaned and repaired clothes, wishing for the mask he had lost on Starkiller. He glanced at his reflection in one of the medical cabinets, hoping that his skin did not appear sallow. The scar was noticeable, pink and raw where it slanted from left temple down toward the right side of his jaw.

He was just inspecting his lightsaber, letting his gloved fingers trace the gash in the hilt that rendered it useless, when the door slid open and the weedy figure of General Hux, clad in his typical dark officer's uniform, stepped into the room. Ren clipped his lightsaber to his belt as he turned to face the General.

Hux's eyes narrowed as he looked down at Ren's lightsaber and then up at his face, and he didn't bother to force a smile. There was no pretending that either man enjoyed the company of the other; they shared ruthless ambition to a degree that could brook no rival.

"So you pulled through after all."

Ren pulled up his hood, hoping the motion hid the annoyed twitch of his hands. "Do not underestimate the Force."

"I did wonder if it was the traitor or the girl who inflicted those wounds upon you," Hux continued mildly. "I must admit a decided lack of surprise when I found you half-dead in the forest without capturing or killing either of them."

"The traitor will most likely die of his wounds." Ren flushed angrily and wished his lightsaber was in working order so that he could ram it through Hux's heart. All in good time. Instead he said, "And the situation with the girl is salvageable. Unlike the Starkiller."

Hux's lips narrowed at the blow. "It is not for you to cast judgement on me, Ren. Not when I saved your life."

Ren sighed. He should thank Hux for that, but wouldn't demean himself with the words. Not when he knew that Hux had probably only done it at the order of the Supreme Leader. "I imagine you will come to regret that, in the end."

"I imagine I will." Hux looked coolly at Ren for a moment, clearly trying to think up something clever to say. But when he opened his mouth to speak, the subtle shifting of the deck as the Finalizer decelerated out of lightspeed distracted them both. A small planet, blue with permafrost, loomed in the viewport. A fleet of ships was silhouetted before the planet.

At the center of the fleet, Ren could feel a dark presence pulling at his mind. Powerful and almost intoxicating. Snoke.

"We have arrived." Hux swallowed hard. Ren suppressed a grin at Hux's obvious discomfort. "I'll arrange for a shuttle to take us over to the Supreme Leader's ship." Hux left Ren standing alone at the viewport.

Ren knew that his Master was displeased with him; he could feel it from here. He had failed in his mission to bring him the girl.

Rey. That was what the traitor had called her. Ren stared unseeingly at the planet as a shiver ran through him, and knew that Snoke could sense his disquiet. Ren had finally felt at ease, finally thought he'd frayed the last hold the Light had on him when he'd murdered Han Solo… The girl proved that the Light had at least one more obstacle for him to conquer. Yet the Force had clearly been with him, enabling Ren to escape the rubble of the collapsing Starkiller in order to complete his training.

And the Force would help him bring her over to him, to the Dark side. All in time.

The scent of the salt water on the air was disconcerting. The world was so heavy with moisture that Rey felt weighed down by its constant touch on her skin. When she closed her eyes, the scant remaining sunlight filtered greenly through her eyelids, echoing the vibrant blades of grass surrounding her. The stacked stone wall was cold against her back, the warmth gathered from the sun leeching out into the cold night. There was no sound but for the waves crashing against the rock far down below.

It was peaceful. And utterly foreign to her but for that calming quirk in the back of her mind: the presence of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. She could feel him standing near the cairn, a position he had taken up at sunset. But the instinctive prickling at the back of her neck told her that rather than meditating, he was watching her.

She opened her eyes. The sea beyond her chosen bluff was dark. Their one small fire was hidden by stone walls farther up the mountain, so there was no light pollution to ruin the steady brightness of the stars wheeling over her head. The brilliant starlight was the only thing on this planet similar to Jakku, although Rey recognized no constellations here.

Yet though she was far from her home, she knew—she hoped, anyway—that she wasn't making a mistake.

Behind her, Luke Skywalker chuckled. "I believe I know what you're thinking," he said, crossing the small saddle between two rocky ridge-lines so he could stand beside her. "You're wondering how you ended up here, thrust in the middle of this never-ending struggle."

She smiled faintly. "I found a BB-8 unit. That's where it started."

"My adventure started with an insatiable droid as well." He drew in a breath, then sobered. "I've been meditating here for a long while. Years. I came here for peace, but I knew Leia would seek me out eventually. Events are never simple. They're even less simple when family is involved."

Rey stirred, just managing to catch herself before peppering him with questions. He hadn't been very forthcoming with his thoughts in the day and a half she'd been with him, but even though she didn't know much detail at all about what had happened before, she could appreciate how difficult the situation was for him.

He seemed to know what she was thinking. "Let's eat, then we'll talk."

They climbed back to the heights, a job made more difficult in the darkness. Rey moved carefully, eyes downcast so she wouldn't stumble on the loose stone. Master Skywalker was so sure-footed that, even though he was at least twice her age, he soon outstripped her and disappeared up the path. By the time she reached the small hut he called home, he'd grilled the fish he had caught earlier, and divided it onto two plates.

"I'm curious, Rey… Why did Leia send you?"

Rey frowned as she accepted the thin plate and sat cross-legged next to the small fire pit. "I'm just a messenger. Just someone she could spare."

"And in the meantime, I suppose she's busy relocating the Resistance base."

"Yes. In case the First Order managed to track down the location after the Starkiller battle."

"Starkiller…" he lapsed into a thoughtful silence, and didn't speak again until they had both finished their food. "When Alderaan was destroyed by the first Death Star, I wasn't receptive enough to the Force to feel the impact. I was at the beginning of my journey, as you are now."

"But this time..?"

He merely nodded, and the shadow in his eyes told her all she needed to know. At last he said, "Tell me: when it happened, did you feel it?"

Rey bit her lip. "I don't think so. At the time, I was running away." It hurt, to admit that. "I had a strange sort of vision, and Maz told me to take your lightsaber, and I—" she drew in a shuddering breath. "I was afraid. Then the First Order attacked and I was too concerned with BB-8 to pay attention."

He held out a soothing hand, and when she forced herself to stop talking she could feel the tears pressing at the edge of her vision.

"Your perception will increase with time and training."

"Experiencing something like that… seems awful." She still had trouble believing that Jedi were real—that she had the potential to be one. That she was at the first Jedi Temple with Jedi Master Skywalker. Suddenly she felt giddy with disbelief.

"Although, I told a Stormtrooper to release my restraints and leave me his weapon, and he did it." She felt childish as soon as the boastful words left her mouth; the victory felt hollow, compared to everything that had happened since. But Master Skywalker offered her a smile.

"That is quite a feat for someone with no training."

"He told me… that I need a teacher."

Her heart raced when she thought of Kylo Ren. How he had used the Force to bind her movement, steal her consciousness, bully his way into her head. He was terrifyingly powerful even though he hadn't yet completed his training, made worse because he knew it. Her small defiance of him had taken all her strength—and a small voice in her head told her that if he had actually wanted her dead, she never would have made it off of Starkiller. Even wounded, his physical strength as they dueled, not to mention his strength in the Force, had nearly surmounted her. But he had wanted to spare her, to teach her—wanted for her to go with him—

"Who told you that, Rey? Did Snoke try to lure you to the Dark side?" Master Skywalker's was insistent but soothing, pulling her away from the memory of those brown eyes boring into her soul-

"N-no. Kylo Ren. He said he could show me the ways of the Force." She could hear his voice echoing in her mind as he bore down on her. She'd barely been able to hold him at bay.

It took her a moment to realize that mentioning that name might be a mistake, might remind Master Skywalker of why he had fled to sanctuary in the first place. When she mustered the courage to look up, the Jedi Master's face was hard.

"Ben." Master Skywalker leaned back, clasped his hands in his lap. Rey thought she could feel ripples of disquiet radiate from him for a mere moment before he regained his stoicism. And then he stood. He looked down at his right hand; the firelight glittered off of the mechanical fingers. She wondered suddenly how he had lost it.

He caught her staring and flexed the hand before lowering it, letting his robe cover it. "Ah, my hand. I had an altercation with—"

"Darth Vader?" she asked, suddenly sure even as the name caught in her throat.

"The Force is strong in my family. My father has it. My sister has it. I have it. You have that power too," Master Skywalker said softly. "His name was Anakin Skywalker. And the truth that my nephew Ben refuses to believe is that, in the end, Anakin came back to the Light."

Rey's mouth went dry as the gravity of what he was saying began to sink in. She looked over at her bag, where the lightsaber lay hidden. If she was understanding Master Skywalker correctly, she had fought with a weapon that had once belonged to the man who became Darth Vader. She shivered despite the warmth from the fire.

A sneaking, unsettling truth settled heavily over Rey's shoulders. When Maz had spoken of someone who could yet return, perhaps she had been speaking, not of Luke, but of… "Ben?" But when she closed her eyes, she could only see the monstrous face of Kylo Ren. She dreaded ever meeting him again. And yet-

"Master Skywalker, you know they're going to come after you."

He laid a hand on her shoulder, preoccupied with thoughts of his family. "Anakin redeemed himself. And Ben… he can as well. Leia sent you here because she knew that you could remind me of my responsibility. I took it upon myself to train a new generation of Jedi Knights. It's only right that I finish what I started."