Force Destiny

Questions

Rey needed an escape from her thoughts. When the conflicting emotions inside her made it impossible to sleep after her confrontation with Kylo, she sought her friends for comfort. She couldn't be alone with his presence in her mind, taunting her... tempting her... any longer. She quietly sat at the dejarik table next to Finn and Poe. They had raided the cabinets for supply bars and ration cubes. It looked lightyears more appetizing than portions.

"Rey, are you feeling...okay?" Finn asked carefully. She could blame her lack of sleep solely on the foreign sensation of hyperspace travel. After crying into her bunk all night, she imagined she looked a bit worse for wear. It hadn't helped that she was already wide awake before she interrupted the giant man-child she was connected with through the Force.

"I'm okay. I've just been processing a lot, you know? This has all been...eventful. I'm just grateful we'll be on solid ground soon." She smiled her best fake smile, and the trusting man that Finn was – despite his harrowing upbringing – took it at face value. Rey knew she had to tell him the truth eventually – he had been honest with her – but she didn't know what to say that wouldn't risk losing the closest thing she had to family since escaping Jakku.

How could she explain her bond with Kylo? The last time she saw him awake before Crait was during their fight with Kylo on Starkiller, when her eventual bondmate nearly killed Finn. Even though that fateful night had only occurred a few weeks ago, it felt like an eternity. Without her tally marks scratched into the hull of her AT-AT, she was losing track of time. Since leaving Jakku, so much had happened – so much she couldn't explain.

"Are you sleeping? Is it nightmares?" he asked softly. "About him?"

"Something like that," she replied, a tender grin lifting her cheeks. Finn cared; there weren't many in her life that did. It thawed her cold heart. "Thank you, my friend, for caring."

"I woke up terrified for you," he admitted, "That monster had just killed Han. I saw the evil in his eyes. He was strong... and fast. I don't know how you did it, Rey."

"And I heard she gave him a giant scar down his face to remember her by!" Poe added, "I wish I could have returned the favor after he tortured me... Well, "torture" isn't a strong enough word for it. What am I saying? You were taken prisoner," he said, gesturing to Rey. "You know that mind-splitting agony too."

Rey blushed. "Yes... I remember."

"What did he do to you?" Finn demanded. Her friend had always been protective of her, but there was an edge to his voice that warned of danger. "I swear to you if he..."

"Don't worry; he didn't really hurt me, Finn," she insisted. "It was uncomfortable and humiliating when he searched through my private dreams and memories, but I was able to force him out of my mind. Then I searched his instead and scared him off. He never even looked for the map before I escaped."

"And there I was, thinking you needed to be rescued," Finn laughed. Rey smiled. Perhaps she hadn't needed rescuing in the classic sense, but she was grateful he had cared enough to come back for her. Her spirits were temporarily lightened, but there was... something... something inside her... a silent voice that had always there, and it was demanding her attention. What it wanted her to know – it felt wrong, like a... warning. She had felt it before; in the forest of Takodana, overlooking the skyway on Starkiller, in the throne room on the Supremacy. Now it was warning her again, danger, but it wasn't until she heard Poe's foreboding words that she understood why.

"Wait, you're telling me you had seen the one thing he was willing to kill and torture anyone for... and all he did was search through your dreams?"