Find You Again (PAUSED)

Chapter 8 - End of Part One

To Ben, the pathways of the World Between Worlds seemed endless, as if every step he took, every breath inhaled was the same motion done a second ago. Time stood still and yet repeating itself over and over. The ultimate tortue. To make matters worse, a million voices echo in the great chasm of space and time.

"Did you come to say you're sorry? To save my soul?"

"No..."

He turns and sees himself in the portal wall, lightsaber aimed at the head of his Uncle, and turns away as he watches himself speed towards him.

"There is light in him, I know it!"

"You thought his choice was made, it wasn't... If I go to him, Ben Solo will turn."

"She was right you know." The mechanical hand of his grandfather placed on his shoulder pulls Ben's attention, he hadn't even realized he had stopped walking.

"You can hear them too? The voices..."

Anakin sighs, one that he has let out a hundred times watching his descendents over the years. Every moment of pain, agony, happiness, despair, he blamed and congratulated himself on every occasion. "My boy, I have heard a million voices in my lifetime, even when I was still alive" he ushers his nephew to sit on the ground, "When I was a bit younger than you are now, I was plagued by visions of my mother, your great-grandmother. Her name was Shmi. She was the bravest, kindest woman I had ever known. The Jedi Order took me in when I was a young boy, my master Obi-Wan practically raised me. But my heart always longed for our reunion. I would have nightmares, hearing her screams and cries. The force moves in mysterious ways, but also is violently direct. Your grandmother and I journeyed to Tatooine, only for me to find her a breath away from dying. I slaughtered an entire village that day..." Ben's eyes widened, these were stories he never heard before. The Skywalker bloodline was a galactic known legacy, a story of cosmic heroism and bravery and goodness. Not this.

Anakin, noticing Ben's shock, places his hand on his back. "Not the story you had in mind?"

"No grandfather I... I knew you fell to the darkside, but I didn't realize it wasn't just a... a snap for you. How could you handle so much pain and not succumb to the darkness?"

"I had a family of my own, a makeshift one. Your grandmother was apart of it. The Old Jedi Order forbid attachments. But you could have never known it looking at the four of us."

"Four of us?"

"I had a padawan, a Togruta named Ahsoka Tano, you know you remind me a lot of her."

"Wait, are you talking about Fulcrum? The Rebel? She was a Jedi?"

"She was a great many things, like you she was tenacious, strong-willed. Obi-Wan often worried that I had plagued her mind and turned her into a mini-me. Boy were we both wrong." Anakin, draws his hands together and stares at his palms, envisioning her two lightsabers in his hands. Calling to memory the excitement he felt re-constructing them for her before the Siege of Mandalore. "Ahsoka was the best of us. Outlived me, outlived the entire order. Shame you never met her."

"Grandfather... I have."

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Rey, barely catching her breath, struggles to pull herself out from the cave. During her excursion she had wounded up collapsing into a pit, vines entangled around her. The energy of having such an intense vision drained a lot of the life force out of her. The darkside can do that to you.

"Finn! Finn I can barely-" she sharply inhales, trying to take in any air she can while a thorned vine wraps itself around her leg, digging itself into her skin.

"Rey! Rey where are you?" Finn calls out, only to be interrupted by a shadow catching his eye. His hand raises to Poe telling him to stop moving, until a hauntingly charismatic voice echoes in his head.

"You are growing tired, you want to lie down for a while."

Finn, barely able to keep his eyes open, repeats this phrase. "I am growing tired, I wanna lay down for a while."

The shadow sprints past, agile like a cat leaping over mounds and mossy ponds to reach the edge of the pit. They look down to see Rey, struggling to find her lightsaber only to realize it's on the ground below her.

"Finn? Is that you? Help me! A vine has my leg and I- I cant move!" Rey shakes her leg hoping the vine will release it, only for it to seep deeper, she cries out in pain.

The shadow leaps down, and all Rey can remember is a bright white light blocking her vision, and the smell of burnt vines. Once her vision clears, she looks down to see a lightsaber had cut through the greenery. Freeing her.

"Come down child, there is nothing for you up there, what you seek you left behind in the caves."