Ouroboros

One

ONE:

It hadn't worked.

It hadn't worked.

He had done everything that she had, had poured his soul and life force and-and everything into her...but she lay limp and lifeless in his arms, her staring eyes and peaceful expression mocking his own despair. He tried again and again, his efforts stuttering and fading with his strength but there was nothing: no motion, no warmth, nothing but an empty void where her light should be. The Bond was silent.

Rey was dead.

His vision blurred though her image remained burnt into his consciousness and he clutched her to his chest. She was almost weightless, her head limply resting against his body and he leaned forward, choked sobs shuddering through him. She was cold as well, no echo of her light or warmth or unique heart left.

It had all been for nothing.

As he thought the words, the familiar black smog of anger began to rise again. His old friend, a cloak he had worn for so many years to hide his pain at his rejection, his loneliness, his sense of inadequacy that Snoke had carefully fostered. All those months and years of suffering to urge him into the weapon they had made him...and then he had been unmade by the action that should have completed him.

His father's murder.

The internal conflict stemming from that one heinous action had unbalanced his convictions, making him vulnerable. He had fought hard to quash the uncertainty, meditating and training, obeying every command and committing terrible crimes. But the doubts would not be silenced, whispering in his mind in the long dark hours of the night just as Snoke had slowly seduced him over so many years during his childhood. Snoke had sensed it as well, sensed his weakness and had sneered at him, scorned him for it. Yet the Bond he claimed to have forged had taken on a life of his own and Rey had been the conscience he never wanted or needed, the light to his darkness and the small chink of hope amid the soulless cold of his life.

Things had accelerated during the search for Palaptine, their encounters more intense and hostile. The Bond was more woeful, allowing objects to pass through as they flickered between the two dipoles of the link, debating, arguing, fighting in both and neither. Until, on the wreckage of the Death Star, she had ended him.

And part of him had welcomed it. Amid the wind and the spray, soaked and cold and desolate, he had felt her LightSaber slice though his body and as he collapsed, his life rapidly ebbing, there had been a sudden peace. No more doubts, no more ghosts, no more nightmares...no more guilt. Just peace and the silence...until she saved him. Her hand over his body, the flow of warmth from her, her life force spent in healing his wound and granting him, her mortal enemy, life. And she was weeping, her face stained with tears. She had killed him in anger-he had felt it. The sudden surge of darkness though her iridescent aura, the twist of her brows...and then the grief and guilt. Those, at least, he understood all too well. But as soon as the darkness flared, it was gone, replaced by the light once more, overcome by her inherent Rey-ness. So she had saved his life by using her own life force and then she was gone, off to face Palpatine on her own.

This time, there had been no conflict, no uncertainty as he realised what this meant. Talking to a ghost or a hallucination of his father had only crystallised his own thoughts, soothing the slightest edge of his guilt but reminding him that even as far gone as he was in darkness, there was hope. His mother had made her choice to reach out to him, burning the last of her life to do so and his Uncle had chosen to use his life force to save the remains of the Resistance-and his twin sister. And even Darth Vader, his grandfather Anakin Skywalker, had chosen at the end, surrendering his life to end Palpatine...or so he had thought. Choice was in his blood, his birthright, and when he cast his own LightSaber away, it had been easy and obvious. And right.