AN: Hi again! I'm really trying to push myself with word count, so please enjoy this 3500+ beast haha:

The medbay was far too full of injured, and they all seemed to watch her when she entered. Perhaps she was being presumptuous, assuming they were looking at her because of what she did, but she felt guilty anyway. She turned and walked toward Leia, whose bed was mostly curtained off.

Leia hadn't been allowed to sit up yet, and she looked so small and frail laying there. The General looked up and smiled, a smile so full of happiness Rey's heart broke.

"Leave us, please," The General told the medical droid, who replied with a hasty beep and rolled away.

"How are you, General?" Rey asked.

"Bored." Leia chuckled, and then grimaced. The movement had tugged at her wounds, the ones dotted around her torso. "You're wearing that commander's jacket."

Rey nodded, brows furrowed. "I don't feel like a leader. These people know so much more than I do."

Leia smiled and reached out a hand. Rey took it and tried not to remember the General's son.

"You've fought all your life. You're brave," Leia reassured her.

"I want to do my part, but I don't feel . . . Worthy. I don't know." She shook her head, feeling as silly as the words sounded.

"Good," Leia told her. "If you thought you deserved the job you'd be a tyrant."

Rey gave her a small smile. "Thank you for trusting me."

"I know you'll be fine." A pause. "Is Chewie going with you?"

"I'll need a copilot."

"Don't tell me you're taking the Falcon!" Leia trailed off happily and shook her head. "Good luck."

"I won't let you down."

A smile. A nod. "May the Force be with you."

* * *

"The flight will take us four hours, so get comfortable," Rey said, speaking into the speaker as she began prepping the Falcon for take-off.

Chewie roared softly beside her as voices from the ships that would follow them came through.

"Copy that."

"See you soon, everyone."

"Ready for take off."

The comfortable vibration of the ship leaving the ground washed over her as she leaned over to flip the-Chewie had already done it. She would have to get used to this, to having a copilot.

"I'm glad you came," she told him, watching the sky as it passed them in streaks of bold color.

<Han would have wanted it. I'm glad I'm here.>

The sky was red around them as they lifted out of the atmosphere. Adrenaline was dancing in the cockpit, and Rey loved it. Finally, when their course was set and it was safe to turn the controls to auto-pilot, she stepped out of the cockpit, leaving the Wookiee alone for his much needed nap.

* * *

"Hux."

The man met his eyes defiantly, haughty hands held behind his back as though the position could make him seem bigger than he was.

"Supreme Leader," Hux replied darkly, ironically.

He cocked his head. "Why wasn't I made aware that four platoons set out for those villages?" He spoke slowly, dangerously so.

"I am a General. I didn't think I needed your permission." And then, like an afterthought, "Supreme Leader."

"This is war, General, but that doesn't make  massacre moral."

Hux blinked slowly, thinly. "Then why," he said, "have you done it?"

As an answer, he replied, "there is no sense in mindlessly killing. Each and every death in war has a purpose. I know it was you who ordered those platoons. You haven't tried to hide it."

He turned away from the man, beginning to walk deliberately around the room they met in. "There has to be purpose to death. No one should die simply because they were alive. You make a dangerous mistake if you believe that the mission of the First Order is to kill."

He sensed it when Hux swallowed, many steps behind him. "So I ask again. Why did you order the massacre of four villages of peaceful people?"

"We gathered intel that told us they were allied with the Resistance."

The man who used to wear a mask stopped. "That's not a good excuse. Can a child be allied with a cause? Was the First Order threatened by babies?"

"No," Hux said fearfully, "Supreme Leader."

"Hmm. Then why were all those children killed for the beliefs of their parents?"

There was no answer.

"Call off the platoons."

Hux pretended innocence. "I'm not sure what you want from me."

"I'm not a fool, General. I know you sent more troopers. Call them off. Tell them to retreat." His voice was rising.

Hux smiled thinly, chest puffed proudly. "Too late."

"What have you done?" He yelled.

"They're leaving as we speak," Hux told him. "Now, if you're quite done, I have work to do."

"Stop." He waited and watched as the man slowly obeyed him.

With a wave of his hand the General's hands were locked in the cuffs that had been at Ben's hip.

"Take him away," he told the troopers waiting outside, ignoring the curses and protests of the chained man.

Something deep was beating within him when he turned from the closing doors. He tried to call out to the person across the galaxy, to warn her what was coming, to tell her he hadn't seen the betrayal of his men fast enough.

Rey.

Rey.

There was nothing. He couldn't get to her. Now, of all times, the Force decided to betray them. He cursed.

* * *

The icy planet grew larger as they neared the atmosphere. During the flight, Rey had changed, putting on an extra coat over her thin shirt and commander's jacket, and slipping gloves over her fingers. The planet was know for its dangerously cold winds and blizzards, but it was also prized for the minerals buried beneath its surface, in the canyons where so many lived. 

"Get ready!" Rey spoke to the ships following her. "A First Order platoon is coming already. We got here just in time."

She pressed the buttons that let them enter the atmosphere safely. "Find the villagers and form a perimeter. Don't let the troopers in. Each squad takes a village. I'm going for the one on the river. Blue team, with me!"

The calls of obedience, of unity, came over the speakers and forced alertness into Rey's system.

<You ready?> Chewie asked.

She nodded, then called for Finn, who had ridden with them. The Falcon was flying closer to the white planet, past the atmosphere and the stars and into the cold of the harsh snow falling past them and around them. Rey pulled the ship up to let it hover just above the ground, and then the ship dropped like a leaf on water into the snow.

She pulled the wrap around her neck up higher to cover her nose and mouth and protect her from the terrible winds. Chewie roared beside her and Finn was nodding as the ramp was lowering, steam bursting up and preventing their view.

She ran out the moment it touched the ground, senses pulsing with a fierce need to protect, to do good, to do better than she had done before. It made her alert when she pressed her saber, switching it on as she ran toward the village, the Resistance running with her and around her.

The ships of the First Order were falling like flies to the ground, graceful and deadly and sharp black against the white, ashy sky.

She was at the village. The Resistance was two steps behind.

"Stay back!" She yelled into the air, throat cracking as she waved the villagers away. "Go as far as you can!"

There wasn't time for anything else. She gripped her saber with two hands and breathed breathed breathed as her ears turned red with cold. Troopers came with guns of fire and grenades that could obliterate her where she stood. She blocked their fire and pressed forward, desperately trying to keep them back.

There, waving and fluttering as it came forward, promising death, was the red flag.

Beside her Finn was aiming and firing and hitting and killing and she could see, even as she fought, even out of the corner of her eye, how much this meant to him-to fight against the troopers he could never be.

A grenade was thrown.

Coming closer.

She stabbed a trooper and spun away to block the fire of another. Someone fell next to her. Someone fell twenty yards away from her. The snow was falling and she could scarcely see with the adrenaline in her ears, but she realized just in time where Finn was.

"Finn!"

There was an explosion and Rey turned in fear. But there, in the dust, in the fire, Chewie was pulling Finn off his feet and roaring at him to <go on, keep fighting!>

She cut and turned and killed and blocked and saved and blocked and dodged and leapt. Behind her the villagers were running.

There was a moment of silence in the battle, and she turned to see someone very small in the middle of the field, standing over a villager a trooper had gotten to. There was a child, a girl in a bright yellow coat.

Rey ran, arms outstretched, to the girl, her heart aching so much she knew she could make it even when the trooper turned its gun on the child. What kind of beast? Rey screamed and held out a freezing hand-that was somehow steady even with her adrenaline-and reached out to the girl with the other.

She didn't mean to do it.

The trooper flew away-ordered by her hand and the pure white lightning shooting from her fingers and the Force and her rage and her fierce devotion to a child she had never met-impossibly high in the air, like a toy or a drone, his body dripping with electricity, and dropped on its head in the snow.

The girl was in her arms, tears like icicles on her small, red cheeks. The girl had seen her do that.

There was lightning on her fingers. Still the electricity danced on her left palm.

"Let me go! Please don't hurt me!"

Rey shook and let her go and stumbled back, looking around her, a terrible fear eating at her as she realized what happened. No one but the Sith could produce such a thing. Who was she?

The Resistance was watching her.

Time inched slowly forward, tiptoeing as the small girl next to her continued to cry in fear, in fear of Rey. Then, the world snapped back to life, and Rey realized that no matter what had just happened, there was still a battle to be won and a village to be protected.

"Get that girl!" A trooper yelled, kneeling over his fallen comrade. He stood, white mask surrounded by white snow, and aimed his blaster.

Then there were four more troopers, joining his shots, and five blasters were firing at her. Rey ignored her fear, pushed back thoughts of who she had become, and ran into their fire.

The child was still behind her after all.

She screamed as she fought, blocking and matching each shot they fired with the bright shivering blue of her weapon. She could still feel the child, the beautiful small girl in the yellow coat, watching the battle and watching the troopers fire at Rey.

She could feel her fighters as they raged against others of the platoon, and if she really stretched, she could feel the other squads fighting to protect the other villages.

Rey ran, away from the little girl, and let the five troopers shoot after her. When she ran and they followed and she was finally far enough from the child that the girl wouldn't get hurt, she came closer and closer and closer to the troopers, ducking swirling diving kicking one man down, chopping he was dead get up keep moving.

She spun and thrust and killed, ducking under the arm that had tried to grab her, silencing the trooper's attempt to hold her down. Another trooper fell.

She found a moment of peace, just a second, but it was enough for her to look beneath her at the steep drop-off. She spun away and let one of the troopers follow her, and then, right as he was close enough he tried to use his gun like an axe to cut her down, she ducked and pushed him into the canyon. She breathed and continued on.

The fight around her by her friends gave her strength, so she came at the others, even when one shot pierced her shoulder. She scarcely felt it and ran at him. Then he was dead.

The last trooper was more cautious with her. He held his gun steadily. Aimed and fired. With a gentle, fear-inflicting whirl of her saber she blocked him. She remembered fighting someone else, and being in the same position as the trooper before her. Every shot he sent, Rey blocked skillfully, and all the while inched closer.

Then he was dead, and she could look up from the fallen armor to the rest of the fight.

Finn shot a man down and turned and looked at her with new eyes, full of curiosity and fear and something painful that made her mind wobble. She couldn't think about it right now; not when troopers were bringing guns of fire to the front of the village; not when Chewie had the yellow girl over his shoulder, roaring and shooting at the enemy; not when there was still the possibility of losing.

Rey stepped forward, saber blazing and flickering.

The world screamed.

* * *

Rage and love and fear. It became his world because it was what she felt, a galaxy away. He looked up, and the Force let him know what had happened. He swallowed and stumbled back because he felt what she felt, he knew what she had done. Impossible. No. Not anymore.

* * *

Resistance fighters were falling. She yelled and blocked the shots of the troopers, trying to save the injured lying in the snow. She reached down to pull out her blaster and shot the leg of a trooper who had been choking the neck of one of their own. The Resistance woman stumbled forward, clutching her throat, and then turned and kicked the trooper down.

Rey continued on.

Finally the world stopped tearing itself apart, her ears stopped ringing with the sound of only the Sith, the troopers stopped coming and their soldiers stopped falling.

The village was safe. All was well. She stepped through the snow, the terribly crimson thing crunching under her boots, and switched off her saber. Finn had been knocked down, so she reached out a hand to help him up. Slowly, fearfully, he took the hand she offered, the hand she had saved the girl with, not the one she had shot lightning from. Rey thought that was important.

He was looking at her strangely. "What was that?"

Rey swallowed, adrenaline rushing out from her head and leaving her for the snow under their feet. "I'm not sure."

The villagers she had sworn to protect were looking at her with terrible eyes. The Resistance was watching her and judging her and looking at the fallen troopers.

She had opened herself so deeply to the Force to manage the terrible thing, and she had done so without even realizing. It's why she now shook with the feelings of a hundred, of a thousand. Fear and fear and fear. What had she done? How could she have done that? Wasn't she meant to be good? How could she have killed so ruthlessly, so impossibly and dangerously?

And the child. The child was still watching her fearfully from Chewie's arms, with icy frozen cheeks.

Rey's arms fell to her side.

No. I didn't mean for it to happen.

* * *

Don't do this to yourself, he sent, but she didn't hear, she couldn't hear over the things she was telling herself.

Don't do it. You didn't mean to. I know you. You're good.

* * *

Out from the rubble of the village, only half destroyed because for a while they had stopped the troopers from getting any closer, a man was rising and walking. He was just a villager, just an old man.

"Who are you?" The villager asked her, but he had to yell over the wind and snow.

She didn't answer.

She didn't know.

* * *

I know you! Just hear me! Look at the people you saved today!

* * *

"What did you do?" A Resistance fighter asked her as she walked away from the village, through the people and the soldiers and the bodies bodies bodies.

"I didn't mean to," she said stupidly, like a child caught after breaking a lamp.

"Are you one of them? The Sith from the old tales? Are you like him?" Another asked.

"I fought with you!" She said back.

Finn, finally, was moving closer, hands up to the crowd that was closing in on her as she walked backward toward the Falcon. "Stop, guys. I'm sure there's an explanation. You know she's with us."

"No Jedi kills like that."

"We could have died, all this time she was with us!"

Yes you could have.

* * *

Hear me, Rey! Don't you listen to them!

* * *

"The village is saved," Rey said to the fighters. "But more troopers could come. We need to set up camp in the canyons."

"Why should we listen to you? How do we know you're not allied with the First Order?"

"I just fought against them!"

"She's not a Sith," Finn told the crowds.

"She's not a Jedi, either. Still she has that saber."

Chewie roared at the man who had just spoke angrily.

"Alright, alright," the man said. "I know Leia put her in charge."

Slowly they watched her. Rey swallowed, not knowing what to feel or say or do. Then she realized they were waiting for her to tell them what their next move was. Maybe they still respected her. Maybe they feared her.

"We'll camp in the ships for now. Make sure there's at least one person awake in each at all times," Rey said, stopping her voice from shaking. What had she done?

Still they watched her.

"Dismissed," she added.

The crowds parted as the snow fell harder, and in the distance the villagers retreated to the canyons. Rey stumbled back to the Falcon, ignoring her friends when they walked after her, calling her name, and went straight to the cockpit, closing the door behind her.

She breathed. Trembled. Ignored the knocks and soft calls of her friends at the door until they went away.

Lightning, like the old Emperor?

* * *

Dammit, Rey! I'm here!

* * *

With eyes like glass and ash she sat in the chair. Then-

"Dammit, Rey! I'm here!"

She shook at the voice.

"Ben?"

Oh she hated how she trembled, how she looked at her hands and remembered what she had done. She lowered the wrap from her face. Impossibly, he was in the ship, eyes wide with pain as he watched her.

She hadn't felt it when he came. Why did that send guilt through her spine? She turned in the chair and watched the snow below, stained with red.

"I was talking to you," he said softly, painfully as he came closer.

She didn't look at him when he settled in the chair beside her.

"Somehow I came."

She heard his voice only vaguely, and it sounded far away even as he sat facing her, knees nearly touching her own. She took off her gloves. Why wouldn't she stop shaking? It was cold or fear or both.

"I don't know what I did," she whispered. "I tried to save this child, and I held out a hand . . ."

She watched her palms. Remembered what she had done.

"I felt it," he told her. "But I know you. You didn't mean to."

She didn't answer for a long time, simply watched him and then the stars. "They're afraid of me."

"They'll get over it," he offered.

She knew he knew the words weren't enough, but somehow she was glad not to feel alone.

"I can't face her," she told him.

"Leia?"

"I can't face any of them."

He reached out. She let him. His palm was on hers, fingers dancing slowly, brushing the lines on her skin and the calluses the base of her fingers.

She sobbed.

He had grabbed her left hand, the one she had sent lightning out of. He was touching it as though it was the most delicate thing in the world and not the most dangerous. She let her hand be covered and held for the second time in two days and suddenly she was only sure of one thing. She looked at him.

"Will you come with me?" She whispered.

"Rey," he began, and it looked like maybe he would say yes maybe he would leave and she would leave and they would find someplace new together.

The Force was cruel. He faded and she sobbed.

AN: Hehe. Feedback?