thatwaslucky | Ajan Kloss- Tuesday after all that

Anakin had taken a very, very hot shower and was feeling as close to human as he could this week. He rapped on the door jamb, then gave her a nudge through the Force.

He'd be doing that a lot to reassure himself she was still there. Because she hadn't been for a bit.

She hadn't been, and that wasn't even the most traumatizing thing about this.

She opened the door for him, and he was going to get a hug right there. He was the only one she had left now.

Anakin poured as much comfort as he could through the Force towards her, carefully shielding his own heartbreak, as he hugged her back.

Talking could wait.

For a long moment she just stood there, not caring if she was crying a little, because now that things had calmed down there were a lot of things to cry about and you hit a point where you had only so much control over it.

But when she pulled back, she asked, "Are you okay?"

Anakin let out a slightly hysterical laugh. "Not remotely," he admitted, "but I'm very glad you're here and not with Obi-Wan and Master Yoda."

Rey paused, and admitted, "I was for a minute."

Literally, not not? More like they'd been there with her.

Anakin nodded. "That's part of why I'm not okay."

"I'm sorry," she said, deeply meaning that.

Anakin pressed his lips together and swallowed hard. "But you're here now," he said, pulling her in for another hug. "That matters, too."

It did, and she let him have that hug, because she was about to make it all even worse.

"There are things I haven't told you."

"Why do I have a very bad feeling about this?" Anakin asked, looking for a place to sit. It had been a long day and he could tell it was about to get longer.

There was a bunk and a small chair, but not a lot in the room otherwise.

And it was bad enough that she was waiting for him to sit before she said anything.

That only increased the feeling of doom, really. He folded himself into the chair and waited.

Rey sat on the bunk, giving herself a second to consider how she wanted to say it. And the only way she could bear to say it was straight out.

"Palpatine was my grandfather." It was the first time she'd ever said it. It really did make her feel dirty.

So, so many unwanted images in Anakin's head right now, so he gaped at Rey for a very long moment as he tried to form words.

Finally, "I'm sorry, what?"

She'd expected a bigger reaction, and she was surprised to not get that.

"He kept himself alive through cloning," she said, she explained. "I don't know details, exactly, but my father was what Palpatine considered a failed clone. He couldn't access the Force."

As the news sunk in a little more, Anakin was looking decidedly like a man who trying not to vomit.

"And that's why your father's dead," he said, swallowing. "What was Palpatine's plan for you?"

"I was told he wanted me dead," Rey said. "He actually wanted me as a vessel for his own power."

Anakin really looked pukey right now. He put his hand over his mouth, going gray in the face.

"Are you all right?" Rey asked.

"Not just yet," Anakin said, closing his eyes. "Are you?"

"It's going to be a while," Rey said, not even needing to think about it.

"Should I worry that there are now a whole ton of non-failed Palpatine clones running around your galaxy?" Anakin asked, still keeping his eyes closed.

"I don't know. I don't know if there were more, or if any even survived," Rey said. And after seeing what all of that had done to the Emperor... "I don't think it's a problem."

She'd worry more about any of his followers that survived.

"I think I was the last resort."

Anakin reached for her hand. "I don't think you were the last resort. I'm not sure that's comforting, really."

"I don't mean that in a... negative way, I guess," she said, squeezing his hand. "I'd get feelings when I was down there. Impressions. I think he was just out of other options."

"Because he was supposed to be dead thirty years ago," Anakin muttered.

Rey shrugged. She almost felt like she should apologize for that, too.

"Do not feel guilty about this," Anakin said with a little look. "None of this was your fault."

"A lot of this was my fault," Rey countered, because a lot of it was her fault.

"How?" Anakin asked quietly.

He didn't seem disappointed in her over the Palpatine connection. This would probably do it.

"I was making terrible decisions. Just... I would get so worried about losing someone that I'd lash out and then the situation would be worse, every time. I thought I killed Chewie by accident. I almost killed Ben on purpose. It was like a bad dream, where you have a goal but you keep getting further from it because every choice you make is wrong."

Anakin's hand tightened on hers. "I know exactly how that feels," he said.

"Should I be worried?" Rey asked in a quiet voice.

She spiraled out of protectiveness, defeated the Sith, and still worried about herself.

"I would be," Anakin said. "You have to rebuild trust with yourself. Make sure that the next time you're making a decision, it's not coming from a place of fear. I lost everything because I was afraid of losing anyone."

"I think I've been living in that space for a while," Rey admitted.

Anakin gave her hand a quick squeeze. "How did you talk yourself out of telling me?"

"I thought you and Leia wouldn't want to train me anymore if you k ke," Rey said, not quite looking at him. "I found out too late she knew the whole time."

"She knew?"

Anakin had not known.

Rey nodded. "Luke did, too. I don't know how. It didn't matter to her."

Which considering who her father was, that made sense now, but...

Anakin pursed his lips. "Do you think they should've told you?" he asked softly.

"Luke did," she confessed. "When he was in Fandom last year." After he died. "I didn't handle it well, I think."

Unless determined repression was a recommended coping method now.

"Well, it's hardly news you'd wanted to hear," Anakin said.

"I really didn't. John told me I should tell you both, but I couldn't. The more I said it the more I couldn't pretend it wasn't real," she explained.

Anakin nodded. "I'm glad you told him," he said finally, "but I couldn't teach you as effectively because I didn't know."

"It would have changed something?" Which was kind of what she'd been worried about.

"A little," Anakin admitted, biting his lower lip.

"How?" she wondered.

"I would have spent more time talking about facing fears," Anakin said. "Been more open about that part of my life."

"You we're pretty own," Rey pointed out.

"Not enough, if you still did it," Anakin insisted.

"I knew I was making terrible choices as I made them, and I still did it," Rey said gently. "I don't know that you could have stopped that. I think I just had to right myself."

"I would have tried," Anakin said just as softly. "It's the duty of the Master."

"I'm sorry. I should have let you," she said.

Like how she was going to forever wonder how things would have been different if they'd been able to discuss this very big thing they had in common.

"Here's a lesson I can teach you now," Anakin said. "Regrets will only keep you stagnant. You cannot change what has already happened. Don't endlessly relive your bad choices. That's how I spent decades as Vader. Hate makes you strong in the Dark Side, and there was no one I hated more than I hated myself."

Edited 2022-08-31 19:15 (UTC)

"Is there a grace period on that?" Rey asked. "It's just... everything feels like what ifs right now."

"There's definitely a grace period," Anakin said. "A few months at least."

"I keep thinking about it the other way, too," she said. "Ben turned back."

"Oh," Anakin said softly, a little like the breath had been punched from him. "Did Leia know?"

"No. Or, I don't think so." She took a breath. "He and I were fighting. I was losing. He paused and I stabbed him, and then I realized what he felt and why he paused."

She still felt terrible.

Anakin hissed in a pained gasp. "So what happened?" he asked. "To Leia. Do you know?"

"I'm not sure, exactly. I barely knew her before it, but she got spaced while I was looking for Luke and it sounds like she never fully recovered," Rey said, slowly, because she was trying to get through all this without crying. And mostly failing at it. "Maz said she 'did what needed to be done for her son,' but I don't know what what means."

Anakin wasn't exactly holding it together either. "She'd do anything," he murmured with absolute conviction.

"It seems to have worked," Rey nodded.

"Then I'm going to hope she knew that," Anakin said.

"Me, too," Rey said, wiping at an eye. "When I left I kept thinking that we were all being really final about things, but I really didn't think I was really saying goodbye to her."

It was going to be interesting when she actually sat down to think about essentially losing three parents in one weekend.

"Need another hug?" Anakin offered.

Because he could use one.

She was already on her feet to go to the chair and hug him.

Anakin clung back just a little too tightly. "I'm so sorry, Rey."

"Me too," she said, letting him cling. He had full reason to.

It didn't matter at all to him that Rey's Luke and Leia weren't--technically--his. They were all his, and he would mourn them for the rest of his life.

He closed his eyes so Rey couldn't see the tears.

For a long while she just stayed there. It was just a lot.

"We'll be okay," she said, when she knew she could.

"But not today," Anakin said, just in case Rey needed to hear that.

She choked out a little laugh. "That wouldn't be possible."

Anakin patted her back. "Not remotely," he agreed.

"Are you good right now?" Rey checked.

"My daughter's gone," Anakin said quietly. "I'll never be entirely good again."

"I know. I'm sorry," she said.

"I know how much she meant to you, too," Anakin said. "I'm not the only one hurting."

"You could say that." It wasn't something she'd ever actually voiced, but she'd seen Leia as a mother to her, and while Leia never voiced it either, Rey was pretty sure she'd felt the same way.

Anakin kept his hand on her back, sending another little wave of comfort.

"It will be okay," she told him. "Tomorrow I get to work, and I start helping people. It's what she would do."

What would Leia do had been the big decision-maker for her and Poe for a very long time.

"It's not a bad legacy to leave behind," Anakin said quietly. "So. Palpatine. Are you ready to talk about that yet?"

"It might depend on which part we're talking about," she considered.

"Whatever part you're ready for," he said.

Rey paused. "Is there a part you want to ask about?"

Maybe she could go from there.

"My brain is made entirely of question marks about it," Anakin admitted. "How did you know to track him to Exegol?"

"We had a spy who mentioned it, and Luke's texts talked about it. That led me on a search for a Sith wayfinder," Rey said, sitting back down. "I ended up on the second Death Star."

"I don't have fond memories of that place," Anakin said. "Did it land on Endor?"

"One of the moons. It's largely underwater now," she said. "I had to climb my way to the Vaults."

Anakin made a face. "You'd think blowing the entire thing to hell would've destroyed it enough."

"It's a shell now," she told him. "I was in the throne room."

"I do not have happy memories there."

"I definitely got a sense of that." Which was still weird to her. "The whole mission was a series of terrible history lessons."

"You could still pick up on us?" Anakin asked.

"I could. I could still pick up on a lot of things," Rey said, frowning, "I wondered if it was... a relation thing."

Anakin made a little face. "Perhaps. Maybe it was your connection with Luke, instead."

"Maybe. Sometimes I would get flickers of things," she said. "It was stronger when it was connected to him, or my... my parents. But I may have been looking for it more."

Anakin nodded. "And then you got more than you were looking for?"

Rey nodded.

"Overall what I felt on the Death Star was love," she said. "But also Palpatine's rage. I walked the halls of that Sith cathedral and I knew my father's story. The blade... I held the blade that killed my parents."

Which was a pretty horrific thing to have to say, especially knowing she hadn't had context for what she was seeing and feeling at the start, and she didn't really realize how terrible that was to say until her voice cracked on the last word.

"I'm so sorry," Anakin said sincerely.

"It's going to take a while to unpack all that," she admitted.

Since a week ago she thought she'd been sold off and left and now she knew how very not true that was, but still didn't have information like their names.

Anakin nodded. "I still get caught by surprise by things from my past," he admitted.

"Does it get easier?" Rey asked.

"Most of the time," Anakin said. "Fandom will sometimes throw a spanner into your progress."

"Oh. Right." That could potentially be an issue.

"You'll come back, though, won't you?" Anakin asked.

"Yeah," she said, nodding. "I don't know when. I'm not sure what happens now?"

"You keep moving," Anakin said with a small smile. "Rebuild."

"I am not qualified for that," Rey pointed out.

"I don't think anyone really else is, either," Anakin said.

"I mean really," she said. "I have not lived in a real society here at all."

"I remember how it used to work, but I can suggest some improvements," Anakin said.

"It's not where I'm useful," she said, shaking her head. "Whatever I end up doing is elsewhere."

"Are you ready to call yourself a Jedi yet?" he asked.

"Yes," she said simply. It didn't feel strange to say at all.

Anakin gave her a small but sincere smile. "I'm glad to hear it."

"I've had all of them literally supporting me. It'd be disrespectful to say I wasn't," she said.

She also knew she'd earned it. But she'd earned it by killing her grandfather, and that part was going to take her a bit.

Anakin smiled. "You could finally hear them?" he asked.

Rey nodded. "It was like the Emperor took everything out of me. All I could do was watch the battle. I couldn't even move. And that's when I could finally hear them. It's the only reason I could face him down at all."

"I'm glad they could help you," Anakin said, missing them acutely right now.

"Me too," she said. "My version of you was one of them."

Anakin looked touched. "Really? In this voice?"

Not something super deep?

"Exactly like you," she said.

He would not be able to explain why that had brought tears back to his eyes, but it had. "Oh," he said in a small, pleased voice. "Good."

She could make some guesses. "You were all there for me."

Which was touching to her too, to spend most of her life alone because of Palpatine and finding out that she really, really wasn't.

Anakin smiled. "You were never alone," he said. "That's a strength the Jedi have that the Sith never will."

"There's something to be said about welcoming everyone who's come before versus being someone who kills your own master for more power," she said, just a touch dryly. She couldn't manage full dryly yet.

"Strange, isn't it?" he agreed.

"I couldn't have been like him," she said, which was also part realization of the question she'd been freaking out about for a year now. She just... she couldn't be like him.

"You're nothing like him," Anakin said vehemently. "Ever."

"I worried," she admitted.

Anakin reached out to squeeze her hand. "He was a reason to worry."

She squeezed it back. "I know I have a temper. And I kept having these visions, of me on a Sith throne, and if I knew how to do all these things because Kylo Ren unlocked it in me then what do I know that I shouldn't?" she said. "And then I found out about Palpatine, and this whole mission I've felt like I was spiraling out of control and..."

She was very much not out of control. But she'd felt it.

Anakin kept holding on. "And you wondered how much of it was in your blood?"

"He did, too," she confirmed. "I just... I always wondered if he was why."

"I don't think it controls as much of our lives as we'd wish," Anakin said.

"I much prefer fully making my own choices," she said.

Anakin nodded. "I agree."

"This was a terrible way to learn these lessons," Rey said.

"It really was," Anakin agreed vehemently.

"Does it get easier, do you think?" she asked.

Anakin huffed a humorless laugh. "It has to."

"I don't know if that's reassuring or not," she said.

"Let's go with reassuring," Anakin said. "We need a win."

"I'll take it," she decided.

Ajan Kloss- Tuesday after all that

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