Force Destiny

Discovery

Poe sprinted down the steps inside the temple, and Rey stumbled behind him in panic.

What were they supposed to do? Should they hide? Should they spread out into the forest and wait for the troopers he would send to find them? Should they fight and rest their survival in the hope of overpowering their numbers? Or should they try to run? If they made it off-world, was there a destroyer waiting for them?

Poe skidded into the corridor and thrust his fist into the portable emergency siren that they had re-purposed from the old base. In an instant, he had switched from a wounded man desperate for answers to the fearless colonel. "First Order!" he shouted into his Master Comms. "They're headed for the base!"

In a matter of seconds, the corridor flooded with swarming bodies and decisive shouts. The effect on the Force was overwhelming; there were too many sources of stimuli at once to focus on. Rey stood in the center, trying to gain her bearings. It reminded her of standing in the center of a dust storm on Jakku. Finn crashed into her as he ran down the corridor, his mission abandoned. "What do we do?" he yelled to Poe. "Do we evacuate?"

"No! Get your weapons! We fight!" came the disembodied answer from somewhere deeper in the temple.

Finn turned to Rey with fire in his eyes, grasping her shoulders roughly. She had never seen her friend with such distrust in his stare, it was enough to break the shock that paralyzed her. "Did you know about this?" he shouted, voice furious and accusatory. "Did you do this?"

Rey shook her head angrily, tears welling in her eyes. She had never seen Finn like this, especially not toward her. How could he believe that if she knew Kylo plans that she would ever willingly allow this to happen? You did know... the Force unhelpfully provided. You knew you were a risk to the Resistance... and you ... did nothing... You allowed the darkness to tempt you into loyalty toward your enemy... You knew he was angry... you knew he tried to sever the bond... but you never considered why... You knew the danger... but you didn't warn them... Now your friends will die... and it is your fault...

What did the Force want from her – to be someone she couldn't be? Perhaps she was wrong to trust Kylo, but it hadn't felt wrong until this moment. She knew the Jedi warned against emotions like compassion. When only the greater good mattered, trusting in an enemy was considered selfish. But what if she didn't want to be the person the Force guided her to be? It hurt to be cruel to Kylo. The cruelty often came from a place of resentment toward his actions and not toward the man himself. There would always be a part of her that held hope in him. Even as the First Order landed on Barkhesh, she didn't regret believing that he wouldn't hurt her friends. If that made her a terrible Jedi, then so be it. She wouldn't regret hoping he would do the right thing.

But would she regret it if he killed her friends? She had put their lives in danger by not telling them the truth. She knew how it would look to them. They would all believe she chose loyalty to Kylo over them. Had she? It hadn't been her intention, but she had been pulled in two opposite directions. At the time, doing nothing had been easier than making a choice. If it had been wrong to stay silent, was betraying her bondmate right? She wished she had someone to tell her what she should have done. The only person she trusted to tell her the truth was landing on the planet to destroy everything she loved. The Force was right, she had failed her friends. She would defend them, kill her bondmate if he forced her hand, but it was clear she couldn't be what they needed her to be.

"What did you do, Rey?" he said, searching her stare for an answer. Tears of betrayal caught at the corners of his eyes. "You led him here!"

Fresh tears blurred her vision. She shook her head again, but it wasn't as certain as it had been the first time. Doubt twisted through her the longer she stared into her best friend's eyes. If Kylo landed on Barkhesh to kill them, then she had been wrong about him. Was everything she believed wrong? Had her indecision sealed the fate of her friends? Her voice broke as she insisted weakly, "No, I didn't!"