Force Destiny

Love

Rey walked down a corridor toward the engineering bay to help Chewbacca. She needed something to do with her hands, something to distract her from the destiny that was hellbent on crashing upon her. Kylo would hate her after what she had done—she was certain of it. He would never forgive her. He had never forgiven anyone, and he was right—she was just like everyone else.

He would never believe the truth, and she likely would never have the chance to tell him. In her panic, her voice had refused to work, to explain, to apologize, to beg for forgiveness. She had craved for him to touch her or scream at her or anything that didn't seem so final. But she had felt paralyzed – not by the Force, but by her own guilt.

The galaxy, however, had greater problems than their broken bond. Not only was Snoke... Sidious... that monster—whom she watched her bondmate cut in half—able to find her in her darkness, but Kylo had spent five billion credits to stop a weapon that could bring him back. Or perhaps it was better said that Kylo had spent five billion credits that might stop a weapon that would bring him back. What if he failed?

Sidious had attempted to manipulate her into killing Kylo. He obviously intended to enact revenge upon his former apprentice for taking his life. He had abandoned his strategy to convince her to do it, but if the First Order created that machine, he wouldn't need her. If Sidious returned, Kylo's life was forfeit. And likely hers, as well. There would be no one to stop Sidious's destruction of the Resistance. She had to help Kylo destroy that machine before it was too late, even if it put her own life in danger.

She was committing treason by continuing to communicate with Kylo over the bond, but it was for the good of the Resistance; why couldn't they see that? If she believed they wouldn't immediately imprison her, she would have told them about the weapon that was far more dangerous than her bond. Even if she hated her general, she knew it was something she would likely have to reveal to him. What would it matter if she did – Kylo already hated her for her role in destroying an army she was grateful was no longer a threat to her friends.

The lines of right and wrong, good and evil had become muddled. She didn't know what was righteous and just anymore. Saving the Resistance by trusting in their enemy? Committing treason to protect the galaxy? Joining the Hutts to eliminate evil? Murdering a child army while breaking the trust of the man she loved? Right was the antithesis of wrong, good the antithesis of evil, dark the antithesis of light, the First Order the antithesis of the Resistance. Or at least, it should have been.

It should have been a linear scale with the two extremes at both ends—one side weighted low with evil, wrongness, darkness, and the other raised high in goodness, righteousness, light. But the sides, at least in her eyes, had become balanced, symmetrical, like opposing sides of a mirror. They were opposite, yet interchangeable.

Poe and his decisions had good intentions, but they were fraught with wrongs that Rey could not reconcile. Kylo had made his decisions with his own brand of good intentions that Rey likewise refused to endorse. Kylo's decisions had brought him to head an institution of evil, yet he had saved her life, committed treason to protect her, even protected her friends. No, he was not as evil as the others believed. And then there was Poe. His decisions had brought him to head an institution of righteousness, yet he had threatened her life, he had joined forces with an evil entity, he had created an ambush to kill the man she loved. Now he had killed clones—trained, propaganda-fed weapons—but also children. She didn't know how to make peace with that. He said he wanted what was best for the galaxy, but was murder best for the galaxy?

They both said they fought for a better galaxy, they both believed in achieving that through necessary evil, and they both had made morally ambiguous choices in the pursuit of victory. She couldn't in good conscience stand behind the actions of either man. Her life had become a battle of contradictions; there were no easy answers in war.