When the Day Loved the Night (On Temporary Hiatus!)

A Spattering of Deception

"How long."

Rey's battered fingers clutched the edge of her seat as she inquired in a whisper. Emotion, disorientation, and utter exhausted discolored her face.

"How long has it been?"

"Six months."

Luke Skywalker rumbled quietly. There was an undeniable disappointment present in his answer.

Rey raised her reddenned eyes to the man who had once been her master, and her voice splintered beneath her realization, "That's... impossible..."

"You've been conspiring with The First Order for six months," Admiral Fray hissed beside the ancient Jedi Master, though General Organa raised a cautious hand to his shoulder. He composed himself at her subtle warning and tugged at his shirt collar, "The only thing that's truly impossible is that you claim you were unaware the Resistance survived the attack on Karriscus, considering you were present during the ambush. Master Skywalker even witnessed your surrender to Supreme Leader Snoke!"

Rey readjusted her gaze in the hazy interrogation room lighting before she swallowed dryly, "That's not... that's not what happened. I don't remember that!"

"There seem to be plenty of soldiers who recall otherwise," Fray snapped before Leia, at his side, cleared her throat in the room's tense air.

"Rey. We have a plethora of footage that The First Order used to taunt us. Footage of you," the General's gaze softened, "Among their ranks. You were one of them-"

"This is all wrong." The lost woman mumbled hopelessly. She offered Leia only a pitiful yearning in her eyes as her chest swelled and sank like the unsteady tide of her emotions. "I saw you... I saw you die."

Admiral Fray released a snort.

"If it isn't obvious to you yet, we're quite alive and well-"

"Admiral."

Luke Skywalker's interruption alone would have done well enough to silence Fray, but the scathing scowl which masked his face ensured not another word lest he conclude.

He had changed since Rey last saw him, she noticed.

Her Master was skinnier, scrawnier perhaps. Scarier. His unfeeling disposition frightened her.

Ben Solo betrayed his uncle years ago, and the imprint of his shortcomings as a mentor scarred Luke far deeper than his flesh. But, to watch his last hope, his second chance, the daughter of the woman he loved, Rey Kenobi fall from the stars in such cruel and conscious surrender...

Luke's heart had fractured into irreparable pieces, webbing a mirror of his own failure.

"What you claim to have seen," his defeated stare remained on the fallen Jedi, "It's simply not possible."

"Snoke pierced your heart with his lightsaber in front me," Rey could not prevent the overflowing of her eyes, "He killed you. He killed you, and he made me watch. I had no choice! There was no hope for me! I died that day, on the battlefield, right next to you!"

"You clearly managed well enough with the enemy on your own," Fray inspected Rey's condition, noting the torn but still gaudy robe adorning her figure. The Resistance had yet to offer her supplemental clothing; they'd decided to interrogate her first, instead.

As Rey uncomfortably hid herself in the revealing garment, Fray folded his arms and glanced at the General, "Oh, but I'm sure she'll tell us she just 'stumbled' upon that in the Supreme Leader's closet-"