Rey left behind Leia and the rest of the Resistance in the lounge room of the Falcon. The last hope of the entire galaxy was contained in the legendary heap of junk. Despite Leia's words, Rey wasn't all that reassured.

Surely they'd need more if they were to stand against Ben. . .

Rey shook her head. There was no time for dreaming of what could have been. She had things to do. She sat down in the cockpit. Chewie was working on repairs in the engine room, but she wouldn't need him for this.

A quick check on the transmissions decoder revealed that still no one had replied to Leia's distress signal on Crait.

Not even New Alderaan.

Rey shook her head. If Leia could not get the others to fight with her, what chance did any of the rest of them have? What chance did she have?

She was no one, and Leia was a legend.

Rey checked the star map. They'd need to refuel after this— they couldn't make another hyperspace jump. Luckily, they were going to a planet that they were sure would be an ally.

Naboo.

Home to the General's mother, and to the man who had set all of this into motion.

Emperor Palpatine.

Leia claimed that she had inherited a property from her mother, after the truth was revealed to the Naberrie family. There, they would be able to stay and regroup. And the Naberries wouldn't be under fire for harboring them, since it no longer belonged to them anymore.

It was a short jump from Crait, too, which made it a bette choice.

But seeing that map of the entire galaxy overwhelmed Rey. All of these systems expected her to fight for them. Luke Skywalker had warned her about the problem of becoming a legend.

Rey wasn't so certain that she would ever become one.

How could they ever fight Kylo Ren now?

Rey bit her lip. No one would see her cry here, see her mourn what could have been. Even if, as Luke had told her, she was a fool for believing it in the first place.

She tied her hair back into the full three-bun hairstyle. The one that her mother had done for her every day before she'd left.

Had she really left her to die as a slave to Plutt? That didn't sound right, her parents selling her for drinking money. After all, she remembered her parents. Little glimpses, like her mother doing her hair, or her father showing her how to carve little toy spaceships.

It made no sense.

But neither did what Rey thought was the answer before. That they had to leave her because she was special, or some bantha poodoo along those lines.

Rey shook her head. For all that had happened between them, she did have to admit that Ben was right about that. What happened with her parents had been holding her back.

Without the truth, as unbelievable as it was, her heart had been left in the sands of Jakku. She couldn't truly dedicate herself to the Rebellion, or to the Jedi.

Now she could.

But what a lonely life it seemed. Were there others out there, like her?

She'd only known one other. . .

Then, reality warbled a moment. Everything went blurry, then tightened into perfect clarity. She heard a hum in the Force, drowning out all other sounds until there was the ringing of silence.

The cockpit of the Falcon darkened as she was being pulled somewhere else, a space in between the stars.

She knew this all too well, from their connections on Ahch-To.

But she didn't see the angled profile of Ben Solo. No, she saw someone else. He had Han's face, more than Ben did, and Leia's eyes— brandy-brown. His hair was the light brown of Han and Leia's, and he looked far younger and handsomer than Ben Solo

She knew his name, he felt familiar, in a way she could not explain.

"Jacen."

"Tahiri?"

At first, she was about to protest— but hearing her true name caused her to transform. Her blonde curls tumbled around her shoulders, she felt the phantom pain of three scars on her forehead, and her shoes were gone. She wriggled her toes, wincing at the phantom memory of the boots.

She looked back to him— and he spoke again.

"It is you."

She remembered the words from Starkiller Base. She had not understood what he meant then. She wasn't sure if he did, now. But now they both did.

"Anakin?" She clung to every second of him, breathless. "Where is he? Where is Anakin?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I don't know anyone anymore. Ben, Anakin, Tenel Ka, Jaina— they're all gone."

"I remember things. . . Is it our fault, Jacen?" she asked.

"Because we used the Force to go back too many times," he admitted. "I thought it didn't change anything. . . "

"I did it," she said. "I can't remember what I did. . . But I know I did it."

Memories of two timelines flashed in her mind's eye. The only sure thing was that she had gone back, she'd gone back for Anakin, and something had went so wrong it had changed everything.

Now everyone was gone.

Her hands reached for her hair, expecting the texture of curls, but instead she pulled wispy brown tendrils out of her three buns. She looked down at her hands. She was Rey again.

"I- I- Jacen—"

But he was gone. As Jacen, as Ben. . .

"Rey?"

She turned to see Leia standing in the cockpit entrance. She seemed to be not entirely there. She'd been like that since Crait. She grabbed for her belt, as if for something hanging off it— but there was nothing there.

"Yes, General Organa?"

Leia blinked and looked up to Rey apologetically.

"Sorry, I thought— well, I'm not sure of anything anymore," she murmured, more to herself than to Rey. She then turned and walked away.

Rey shook her head. But when she looked around at hyperspace, she now saw something just beneath the surface of the world. The revelation of an old life, a new timeline. . . She could only see the fracture points, the shatter points.

Where she had shattered the timeline.

AN: I finally decided to finish this after the BS that was The Rise of Skywalker and seeing the even more BS drafts by Colin Treverrow and Dean Alan Foster. This is an edited version of the original one-shot to add new information from all of those drafts, because they're all a part of the multi-verse now, baby. Before, I wouldn't write more because I find this to be an inherently sad concept. But I finally figured out how to give this a happy ending.