Anakin had been taking a break from watching over her family - even Luke can't see her anymore, not usually - to glumly wander around the wrecks of battles past.

She reacts when she sees a scavenger kid fall - even though she's never been able to do anything -

She kneels over the kid.

She can't heal the kid - she tries -

"Shit," she mutters.

- there's someone - she can see through them -

she blinks up at them, tries to focus through the pain and the tears

" - Can you see me?"

she nods and closes her eyes - everything is spinning.

"Kid. Focus. Listen to me. I can help you heal yourself, okay?" She pushes away the 'maybe.' She knows she can. "But you gotta focus."

she - how? she doesn't have any medpacs

She very calmly starts explaining how to use the Force and how to focus your mind on wanting to be healed - her method, not the one the Jedi of old often preached, not the Sith one which wasn't very good at healing anyways. Passion and desire and an intense laser focus on what you want, trusting in the Force to help...

she listens carefully, trying to push away the pain. she's never done this before, never even -

she's so sad and angry and lonely and everything is so much - she's so hungry

wants to be better tries to push everything at it. she doesn't know what the Force is but she can trust her - nobody has ever tried to help her before

The pain fades.

But Rey doesn't heal.

Anakin - really really really wants to do something, this is the first person who's seen her in years, she's lonely and lost and -

She pushes. Asks the Force to please, even just this once, help. Trusts that her oldest, first friend will guide her - 

Anakin lays a hand over her forehead, syncs her efforts with Rey's.

Rey heals.

Rey stares at her and tries to move. She moves easily and the pain is gone and - she's better!

"Thank you." She stares up at her in awe.

...Huh. That's the first time she's even plausibly done - anything - since she died.

Anakin grins.

"You're welcome. Though don't immediately go scampering everywhere - might have a hard time of it healing you too soon after the first time."

Rey nods and continues sitting. She smiles at her, feeling really giddy.

"You're blue. And see-through."

"I am! I died a while back. People usually can't see me - I'm impressed you can."

"I didn't know dead people can be blue and see-through. I thought they were just dead and boney."

"Sometimes people who the Force really likes get to be ghosts instead of skeletons."

"You said that before - the Force. I dunno what that is."

She sits down, cross legged.

"It's what I used to heal you. It's - a living thing, kind of. Invisible and everywhere. Some people can feel it, and some people can ask it to help them do things. Have you ever just known something was a good or a bad idea, or wanted something really hard and had it happen?"

Rey frowns and hugs herself. She's been wanting her mama to come back so much but - there was something else...

"Once when I was really thirsty I just knew if I walked over to where near Rebbah lived - not that close it was a little away - but there was a whole barrel of good water that someone had buried a long time ago. I had to dig and dig and dig but I found it."

"That's the Force. It talks to us, sometimes."

"Will it show me where my mama is? Or when she'll come back?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes not, though. Force visions are pretty rare, and they aren't always things that're definitely true - sometimes the Force just shows what could be."

Rey nods sadly, the little bit of hope that had wormed its way in fluttering away. But...

"My name is Rey. What's yours and can I hug you or are you too ghosty?"

"Hello Rey. I'm Anakin. I don't think I'm huggable, but I also didn't think I was visible, so, maybe you can try."

She reaches out to touch her first.

Anakin doesn't seem to be there, as far as Rey's hand is concerned.

What if she focuses really really hard like she did when Anakin healed her?

Maybe?

(Anakin would also really like to be able to touch someone.)

Rey focuses even more - Anakin says the Force can help, so she focuses on asking very nicely.

Anakin's definitely there. She's exceptionally present, in a way a fire might be present - Rey can tell that she's lonely and sad and hopeful.

Rey can't touch her with her hands - Anakin's too far away, in a sense - but she kind of has an idea of how she could brush her own present-ness against Anakin's.

She forms the thoughts and the will and her everything and pushes it at Anakin.

It's loneliness and fear and deep longing, but also life and the harsh warmth of the sun and the sand under her feet, the sharp relief of that first sip of water and the joy of finding lost or hidden treasures, fixing them and exchanging them for a real sense of having earned her continued existance. Sleeping under the stars, watching ships land and take off, learning something new, climbing as high as she can and seeing the whole world below her. As well as the hurt in the back of her throat when she thinks of her mama and whether she'll really ever come back.

It's Rey. Her everything.

Anakin responds.

She's old for a human, with a long history - a lot of love and loss and hate, all burning intensely in her, and a long, bleak period of nothing like a gaping wound in her history. She's not always been a good person. She's not always been a bad person. She's a hero under one name, a villain under another. She delights in things easily - using the Force, letting it guide her, jumping far, flying, fighting, art, other people.

She knew, when she was a kid, that the worst path was possible. She hated the mere idea of it. She walked it anyways.

She's sad, now, and often frustrated, but... Her kids are doing okay. She's proud of them. She loves them.

"You feel very intensely," she says, softly.

"I wanna hug you even more now." She pauses and thinks about what she just felt. "You really did all that? You were really powerful."

"I was, in a way."

"Do you think... that you could teach me?"

"...I've never had a student."

"But - yes. I think I can."

"Maybe you can teach me and I can be powerful and then I can bring you back and you can have so many hugs and see your family again."

"You're a really good kid. Maybe you can."

"You helped me. Nobody has ever helped me before. You're important and I wanna help you."

"Then I'll make sure you can."

Rey smiles at her and then stands. They're still up very high, Rey was actually quite lucky that she landed there. Otherwise, she would have fallen thousands of feet and definitely wouldn't have survived enough for healing.

"I still haveta get some stuff for the Blobfish before I can leave. I think engineering is over there," she points up and to the right, there is a half-open door several dozen feet up. "There is 'sposed to be tons of stuff hidden away."

"The blobfish?"

"Unkar Plutt. He's a Crolute and the junk boss. I think 'blobfish' is kinda mean, but that's what everyone calls him and people look at me weird when I don't."

"Why do you have to get stuff for him?"

"He's the boss and if I don't get him stuff I don't get food or water and sometimes he gets mad."

"Sounds like he's your master, then."

Rey shrugs. "I haveta wait with him till my mama comes back."

"Where did she go?"

"She left on an XTC light freighter but she didn't say where. I think she's in trouble because she should be back by now, she promised she'd be back."

"...Do you feel she'll be back, or do you want her back?"

"She said she would be. She promised." Rey hugs herself.

"People are mistaken, sometimes. And sometimes they lie."

Rey wants to cry, wants to scream. But she doesn't, she can't. She's so hungry and she has things she has to do.

"Will you stay with me?"

"As long as you want me."

"I gotta climb now. Can you do that too?"

"I can float. Trained force users can fall more slowly - or get a sense for how to climb."

"I'll keep an eye on you."

"I'm not usually so clumsy. But when I get this haul the blobfish promised I could have an extra quarter ration."

"...How about I teach you how to steal food."

"I don't think he'd be happy about that."

"You can use the Force, and you can be careful and make sure people won't know."

"Are you sure? I don't want to get into more trouble."

"We'll be careful, and we'll practice a lot before taking any major steps."

"I should finish this so I have some food now. I haven't eaten in a few days and if I'm gonna learn I should eat first."

She nods. "Food's important."

"Have you been on this sort of ship before? I think it's an Imperial battlecruiser from the big battle."

"Yeah. I've been on them - quite a lot, actually."

"Do you know where I can find anything that's worth a lot?"

She smiles, closes her eyes, and then points. "There's also some stuff that's harder to get to or less safe, but there's some really valuable stuff that way, and it's pretty safe. I can teach you how to sense on the way."

Rey sets off on the safer route. If Anakin knows a lot about ships she's going to get so much stuff that eventually maybe she can even afford to sleep somewhere that is warm and safe and not filled with other people that constantly steal her stuff.

And Anakin teaches her how to just know her surroundings, and how to focus on what she wants and get a sense for how to get to it - "I used to find closing my eyes helped a lot, there."

It does require a good bit of mindfulness and meditation, the way Anakin does it, and a friendly trust in the Force.

It's hard to trust something she just found out the existence of, but she can do it. It... feels familiar. Like she's been doing this all along but just not paying much attention to it. She's not very good at meditation though, she just wants to move around and do things.

Anakin understands that entirely. Has Rey ever run so far and so long that her mind narrowed in on one point, smooth and drifting?

!!! Yes, she has. She closes her eyes and tries to focus on that feeling. Of the speed and exhaustion but also the focus and sheer exhilaration. When she's going so fast that it's only her and -

it's calming and everything makes sense.

Good.

And, like the path before her feet when she's running -

Her steps will lead her to her destination. They can't not.

Rey follows the path, settling in a sort of calm that she hasn't ever reached before. She continues on and eventually -

she opens her eyes and just knows what she wants is right here. Rey turns and smiles at Anakin.

"It worked!!"

"It did! Now, what I sensed is a bit hidden - can you get to it?"

Rey thinks and tries to slip back into that place - it's a little harder now, more intangible... but. She walks a little to the opposite wall, lifts a piece of metal from her waist and uses it to open a panel. She makes quick work at it, cutting a few wires and ripping something out altogether until -

A compartment back where she was opens and reveals a small trove of valuable parts that Rey can disconnect and sell!

"Good job, Rey."

Rey laughs and really wants to hug Anakin. "I can't wait to come back and find even more stuff. Maybe we can even find a ship and fix it up and go find my mama!"

"You know, I once stole a ship and all the slaves in a city and ran away with everyone to somewhere nice. It's quite doable."

"But we could build one instead and it'll be ours and we won't have an angry person chasing us to get their ship back."

"Building a ship sounds a lot more fun than stealing one, too."

"Yeah! And we can put in whatever we want and make it perfect and it'll be nice and safe and we can make sure there's secret passages and hidey-holes and nobody but us will know where they are."

"That sounds like an excellent sort of ship to have."

Rey bounces and starts her work on pulling everything apart. She has to be careful, she doesn't want to break anything and sometimes the parts are still live and you can get hurt a lot if you don't handle them properly. She still has a lot to learn about this sort of stuff, but she's picking everything up really quickly.

Anakin helps direct her - she knows a lot about how spaceships work, after all, even beyond her own sensory abilities. There's tricks, sometimes, to getting this or that piece off without damaging it, and at one point she helps Rey find some old engineer's tools nearby.

Rey is nearly giddy with excitement by the time they're finished. She learned so much and she has nice tools now and so much tech. She maybe doesn't even need to give it all to the blobfish and can actually keep a little for just-in-case when she is really desperate.

Anakin has suggestions on smaller, more valuable stuff Rey should be able to hide better, so she can keep some back safely. "And you can make people ignore things, though it's harder if you aren't right there."

"There's this old AT-AT that I sometimes go to hide things in, I could put them there. It's a little far away from Niima Outpost and the blobfish doesn't like me going out there much, but we can go there now."

"Alright."

Rey packs everything up and makes her way down to the ground. It's much easier than going up, she jumps onto a cable and slides down quickly. When she's on the ground she moves over to a small sled, carefully packs everything away and secure under a tarp and then starts dressing from head to toe. A mask and goggles and a covering for her head. The goggles may be scavenged from a old stormtrooper helmet.

"I don't have a speeder yet and it's a long walk. We should be back before the sun is really high though."

She nods. "There's ways you can use the Force to move more quickly, but they'll be possibly about as tiring as running when you're still new at it."

"I wanna learn that! That sounds so much fun." She starts hauling her sled out into the dunes. The sun is hot, but not as hot as it will be, and they look to be in the middle of a sea of sand. "Sometimes I go out with some others, but 'coz I'm small they think they deserve more than me and take my portions."

"That's wrong of them."

"The Blobfish is the boss and usually he makes sure everyone behaves. Telling him about it would've made them mad at me and probably steal my things even more. I just go out on my own now."

"It doesn't sound like he's a very good boss."

Rey shrugs and keeps on pulling her sled.

"How did you find me?"

"I've been wandering old battle sites for a while. I happened to see you fall."

"Were you at the big battle?" She's heard so much about the Battle of Jakku. All the ships that she scavenges from are from it.

"Here? No. I died about a year before, in the Battle of Endor."

"I've never heard of that one. Was it scary?"

She hums. "It's been a long time since anything scared me, really."

"I get scared all the time. But it's not allowed to stay long 'coz it gets in the way of loads of stuff."

"Good. You shouldn't let your fear control you - but you should acknowledge it exists. We feel fear for a reason, and - it's not good, to forget it."

"Sometimes it makes me do stupid stuff that I regret later. So I try to go somewhere else, or run really fast until it goes away or I find a way to fix it."

"I'll be able to give you new ways to address your fears, too - and to figure out what they mean."

"What other stuff can you teach me?"

"All sorts. Sensing, seeing the future, jumping far, healing, fighting, hiding..."

"Have you always been able to do those things? How come everyone doesn't learn?"

"When I was about your age I figured out how to hide, and how to figure out how to accomplish my goals, and how to move objects with my mind. A few years later I flew a ship I'd never practiced with. But - most of this I learned from a teacher. And teachers are few and far between."

"They used to not be. A long time ago, there was a Republic, and children were tested for their connection to the Force. Very connected children were taken to the Jedi to be raised. In Republic territory, at least."

Rey listens carefully. "What does Jedi mean? Are we in Republic territory? How come nobody has tested me? What was your teacher's name?"

"The Republic fell decades before you were born. The Jedi died with it. The Jedi were a group of people who used the Force a certain way. Nobody's tested you because no one's managed to set up testing since the Republic's fall."

"My teacher's name was Elesse."

Rey can feel Anakin's sadness. She stops pulling her sled and sits on it, careful not to mess anything up.

"What were they like?"

" - I'd rather not talk about her right now."

Rey nods and instead gets out her water. There isn't much left, so she has to be careful.

"My mama is named Tyri. She taught me loads of stuff, but nothing so exciting like the Force."

"My mother was Shmi. She was - wise."

"What about the rest of your family; can they use the Force too?"

"My children and grandson can. My mother - she didn't use it the way I do. But she trusted it, and she had visions, rarely."

She resists the urge to bounce. "I can't wait to run really fast and - can you teach me to fly? That would be the coolest ever!"

She laughs. "I didn't figure out extended flight in my lifetime - I could float from one place to another, but not really fly. Maybe you can build on what I figured out."

"I will! I'm gonna be the best flier ever and zoop around Jakku and everyone is gonna be so jealous."

"You'll be very good."

"For now, though, you shouldn't tell people about the Force - it's not safe - and hopefully we'll be leaving Jakku soon."

"Why isn't it safe?"

"If people know you have impressive abilities, they might demand more of you for the same reward. People can get jealous, too, or decide they want to control you so they can use your abilities for their gain. It'll also make being sneaky harder."

"People don't like it when you have something they don't." She nods.

"Exactly. Once you're more established - and off Jakku - you'll be able to change that. People don't like a rival, but they love a hero."

Rey hups up and continues pulling her sled. "I've never seen a hero before. Were you a hero?"

"For a while, at first. I enjoyed it."

"What sort of stuff did you do?"

"Shortly after I started training, I helped rescue a planet from a droid army..." she starts, launching into a series of tales of her - more heroic - deeds, mostly prior to the outbreak of the Clone Wars. Her stories also paint a picture of a vastly different galaxy than the planet Rey lives on.

Rey listens and asks more questions and takes many rests. They're a pretty long way from any sort of civilization, though eventually nearing when the sun is going down they make their way to her hiding place. It's a half-buried AT-AT that Rey has started to haul sand out of.

"Think I'm gonna sleep now. Will you stay?"

"I will. I promise."

It's a weird feeling, believing her. She's never really had reason to give that sort of trust before. Her mama was always out, working, and she has always been alone.

"I can't wait to show you Niima. There's so much stuff and people and the blobfish is kinda mean but he can be nice sometimes, I swear."

"I'm looking forward to it. Though I think you said you were going to sleep?"

Rey grumbles playfully but does settle down, covering herself with an old - something - to keep her warm in the chilly desert air.

And Anakin keeps watch over her through the night.

(She - can't believe she's found someone who can see her, it's been - years, possibly the last time Luke ever saw her fully, enough to talk, was after the New Republic formed, before Ben was born - she'd been so proud of her children, so proud of what they were going to build - Luke's glimpsed her since, probably knows she's watching over them still - )

(It's been seventeen years since she's had a conversation.)

(Anakin gets lonely. Even if she wasn't the sort to keep her promises... She's not leaving this kid.)

(And, who knows. Maybe it's time she took a student, for real. She doesn't know if she'll be any good at it... But it's worth trying. Worth not leaving a child to waste away in the desert.)

Anakin's there when Rey wakes, meditating. She's calmer than she had been, settled somehow.

She so pretty and nice and she stayed all night.

"What are you doing?" she whispers. It seems like a whispering time.

"Meditating," she says, softly, as she surfaces. "It's a way of - learning my own mind, and getting to know the Force."

Rey goes and sits next to her. "Will you show me?"

"I can, yeah, though there's a lot of ways to meditate."

She starts walking Rey through the absolute basics of meditation - mostly posture, breath control, that sort of thing.

She can follow directions and sit up straight and cross her legs and breath in the weird way that Anakin tells her to.

It's relaxing, as promised. Makes her thoughts that aren't the steady count of breaths seem less prominent, less overwhelmingly important.

And then Anakin starts talking about the Force, about how it's in her heart, in the air she's breathing, in Rey and in Anakin and in the sand -

It's easier to tell, like this. There's something in Rey responding to her measured breaths.

It's so weird. But familiar, like an old friend that is always at your side.

- except the pain in her stomach is stronger now and she feels weak. She's still so hungry.

Anakin brings them out of meditation. "You're going to need food," she says, softly. "How do you usually get things to eat?"

"I give the Blobfish the stuff I find and he gives me ration packs."

"Well, we have some valuable things now. You might want to hold some of it back for your own use, or in case of an emergency - but I know what fair prices for these pieces should be."

"I dunno if fair is important to him."

"It should be - at the very least, if he's smart he'll give more for things that're hard to get and high value to him." Also if Anakin can heal someone despite being a ghost maybe she can mind trick someone into not being a dick.

Rey isn't so sure, but she nods anyway, then starts sorting through her sled and hiding away the things theyre going to sell and the parts she's going to hide. It takes her a little while, digging is hard, but she manages. Eventually she stands.

"I'm ready now!"

"Alright. Let's go get you some rations, then."

And they set off! Rey really wants to chat to Anakin and tell her all about where theyre going, but she's so tired and hungry that talking is really hard.

Niima Outpost really isn't much to look at. There are a lot of people around though, most looking as run down and shabby as Rey herself. Most of them sit under shade cloths and work on fixing up old pieces of broken machinery.

Rey heads straight to the most imposing structure in the area and joins the queue.

Mind tricking someone when you can't communicate with them - and it's quickly clear no one but Rey can see the ghost - is hard. And this blobfish seems temperamental, and not inclined to negotiate...

But it's not too hard, dominating simple minds - easier with the dark side, in this case.

She puts whispers in Unkar Plutt's mind, ideas that Rey is a brilliant child, a credit to his teachings, who will surely pay him back a thousand fold if invested in properly...

And the things she guided Rey to are immensely rare and valuable, after all. Anakin's careful, weaving her murmurs tightly, deeply, enough that someone like this should never fully shake them.

Unkar Plutt greets Rey a bit more fondly than is his norm, and pays her well - not full price for her findings, of course, but easily three times what she would've expected for her rarer items. Enough she'll have plenty of food and water for a week of solid training, and enough excess to hold back and barter for items she might need if she goes scavenging again in a week.

Rey is ecstatic and thanks him many, quickly gathers up all of her rations and moves to the side to pack them all up.

"What do you say to some training, now - once you've eaten, of course," she says, after the confirms (and slightly pushes for) that no one's paying Rey any attention.

"I'm gonna go give one of these to Niam. She gave me some food the other day before I left, I gotta make sure she has some now."

"You should. Kindness is - something good, especially when someone's helped you before." It's something Anakin struggles with, even now, but... She's seen a world without kindness.

Rey nods and quickly runs to the bazaar to find Niam. She's an older lady, heavily wrinkled and boney. She does not look healthy, years of exhausting work doing a toll. She sits on the ground and works at repairing a broken energy converter. Rey sits down next to her, breaks open a packet of rations, takes away the converter and replaces it with the food. There's no point actually speaking to Niam, she lost her hearing before Rey was even born. Niam pauses, looks down at Rey smiling up at her and starts eating slowly. Rey responds by eating her own ration.

Anakin watches, smiling softly.

And, over the coming weeks and then months and years, she stays by Rey's side, training her. In self mastery, in the Force, in philosophy (after a lot of internal debate, Anakin presents the Jedi Code and all its complications as one remembered philosophical text out of many - let Rey learn old treatises on love even as she learns old treatises on proper uses of the Force), in history (Anakin steers clear of her personal history for now, focusing instead on things she learned as a padawan), in politics (Anakin glows when she talks about all her children are doing in the New Republic), in logic and decision making and responsibility, in science, in math, in art, in fighting and surviving and playing -

Anakin's had a long, full life. Four years gives a lot of room for her to teach. It's not everything. Not enough.

Slowly, she opens up about her family, too. Talks about Luke and Leia and Leia's two children, about Han Solo, about disappointment and worry and love - always love, Anakin loves more intensely than anything. She died for love, she says once, and love binds her still.

Luke's re-founding the Jedi. Anakin has opinions about how he's going about it. She's proud of him, though, woven in with every worry and criticism and praise.

Leia's not as central to the government as Anakin thinks she should be. She's got a lot of support, though, and she's getting a lot done.

Ben and little Anakin (Anakin has a laugh at the name of Leia and Han's younger kid - "Hope it's not prophetic," she says, "I wouldn't wish a second me on the world.") are training under Luke, too, and the original Anakin talks about them enough that Rey probably knows them about as well as she knows anyone.

And then, one night four years after Anakin starts training her, Rey has a dream.

There's a boy in her dream. He's - well, more a man. Maybe ten years older than her, just past the cusp of twenty.

He's sad, and angry, and frustrated, and in his dream darkness nips at his heels and wraps around him and the light is a receding pinprick.

Rey is used to having weird dreams, especially since she started training under Anakin. She creeps a little closer and peers at him and the darkness.

"It looks like it wants to swallow you up."

He whirls around. He doesn't seem really able to see her at first.

"Who are you?" he demands.

"Don't you know? This is my dream."

"No. You're in my dream."

"Our dream. Neat. I'm gonna call you... Yera. It's super creative. What are you gonna call me?"

He rolls his eyes. "I'm not going to call you anything, because you're a figment of my imagination."

"I'm a pretty cool figment then. Am I gonna have to name myself? Even figments should have names."

He turns away and keeps pacing, tries to clear his mind, to push away the voices - the ones coming from the shadows snapping around him, from the random girl his subconscious has conjured -

He can't feel her emotions. He can feel everyone's emotions, all their hate and anger and fear and pain and sorrow. So, therefore, she's not really here. No point in talking to himself, he's not crazy, not like some of the other students said -

"I'm gonna call myself Kessa. Like the star." She pauses and watches him pace. He looks so sad. Like she used to be. And so lonely.... except she can hear other voices pushing at him from the shadows. She frowns. "Why aren't you shutting them up?"

He takes a sharp breath in.

"I don't know how."

"I can try to help if you want. I'm not the best at stuff like this, but we can try together?"

"What can you possibly know?"

"My teacher is really powerful and she's been teaching me a lot. Plus, this is our dream. Nothing should be able to touch us here if we don't want it to."

Deep breath. He tries to center himself. He fails. (He always fails.)

"My dreams never seem to obey me like that."

She moves closer to him and offers him her hand.

"We're the bosses here. Plus, living means never giving up. We have to try."

He looks at her for a few long, quiet moments.

And then he takes her hand.

She's as bright as the sun she named herself after. Her emotions shine through, she so full of them. Full of joy and love and unbridled anger at the injustices that they both face. That everyone faces. For a long moment, the darkness is silenced and all he can feel is Kessa.

- she snaps awake then and findings herself staring up at the dark sky, full of millions of stars.

And Anakin is sitting by her side, still, meditating.

"Bad dream?" she asks.

"Weird dream. I think I made a friend. Ish."

"In your dream?"

"I dunno if it was purely my dream. Can that happen?"

"I don't know. But - there's a lot I don't know, and the old records were mostly destroyed... Still. The Force is in all times, all places - and sometimes it gives us a bridge. Usually in the form of visions, but I suppose a shared dream isn't out of the realm of possibility."

"He was really sad. The darkness was all over him, trying to take over, and he had no control."

She's quiet, thinking for a while.

"Do you think you'll dream of him again?"

She shrugs. "I hope so. I was just about to try and help him. I was thinking we could have worked together and figured out a way to push the darkness back. Or at least work out how to make it work for him."

"You're a good kid, Rey. I think you'll meet him again. Why don't I teach you something about the darkness, then, so you can help him better?"

She sends Anakin a bright burst of love and affection - her version of a hug. "You're the best teacher ever."

She laughs, and sends love and pride back. "Thank you. But - not ever. Someday, you'll be a better teacher than me." Her smile softens. "That's the point of being a teacher, after all."

"To watch as your students leave you in the dust? Never gonna happen."

"I'm sure you'll be dragging me along with you."

"Never gonna leave you ever. You're stuck with me forever."

The burst of affection in the Force is rather intense. "I feel the same."

She settles, then, into an almost meditative mind frame. "Still - there's some lessons I need to give you now, I suppose," she says, a bit teasingly.

Rey sits up properly and settles into her default learning position: legs crossed, back straight.

"I'm super ready. Look how ready I am."

She just smiles and settles into her teaching mode.

"So - the classic philosophy is that the Force has two sides, or modes, or states of being. The Light, represented by harmony, peace, and compassion, and the Dark, represented by passion, anger, and aggression. It's..." Her gaze goes briefly distant. "If you have your eyes closed... The only thing you can see about your surroundings is if it's light or dark out. And - that is a fairly basic division of the Force, if only because those are the two roads people have trod for millennia, leaving all other potential paths to become overgrown. But... It's not all there is to the Force." Quietly: "When I died, it was like my eyes opened for the first time, and I saw color. I saw everything the Force is. My vision - closed down a bit, when I manifested as a ghost. But that's something important to keep in mind, Rey. Light or dark - it's all the same Force. The same thing you're viewing, through two different perspectives."

"There's a lot of philosophy built up around the two sides. You could spend a lifetime reading and not reach a full understanding. The - typical understanding in my time, and possibly the typical understanding for your new friend, is that Jedi let the Force command them, and Sith command the Force. It's not so simple. Nothing is. The dark can consume and control. The light can be bent to a stubborn will. The Jedi weren't the only users of the light, and the Sith weren't the only users of the dark. And neither the Jedi nor the Sith really had room for love, or for a partnership with the Force."

"Classically, you keep the dark from eating you by commanding it. You come out of the dark by releasing emotion and attachment, though many Jedi held that once you'd turned to the dark once, it would forever dominate you. That's - not true." She wraps her arms around her knees. "I Fell from the light into the dark. When I used the light - I was emotional, I was attached, I loved and that love felt like basking in sunlight. When I used the dark - I'd never been so numb. Like everything I was had been swallowed by a black hole, leaving only a shell. Love brought me out of that hole, and into a world beyond light and dark."

"Your friend probably struggles with fear and anger. Most people haunted by the dark do. Fear... It's something that lurks behind every emotion. Fear of losing what you love. Fear of other people growing more powerful than you. Fear of sorrow. Fear of joy, even. And anger - there's many things to be angry about. I could spend a hundred years drowning in fury, and never think of all the things that deserve anger. Those aren't bad emotions. Not on their own. Fear tells us that danger might exist. Anger says this isn't fair."

"The problem is when you let your emotions - your darkness - master you. I've walked that path before - I've killed in anger. Those are the deaths I regret the most. I've let my fear of loss cause my loss."

"Your friend... I suspect he's scared of the dark. As long as he can't master that fear - it risks consuming him."

"My emotions help me. They make me more powerful. The Force and my emotions work together... if that's the darkness, I don't think I'm afraid of it. It's comforting, it's power. It's me."

"Our emotions are part of what makes us who we are," she says, softly. "It's right not to fear them. The darkness - I'm not sure how I'd define it, actually. If I was going to pick two sides, it wouldn't be 'peace' and 'anger.' It'd be 'love' and 'malice.'" She smiles at Rey. "There's a danger in power - that you'll lose yourself. Would you kill everyone who's ever been kind to you, if it got you power?"

"They helped me. I'd rather die."

"And if someone told you that you needed that power to save someone you loved even more?"

This brings her to a pause. Because she would. If killing everyone that had ever been kind to her would help Anakin, the person that she loves more than anything in the whole universe...

"I did that. I betrayed everything I'd ever stood for, killed everyone I'd ever loved, to protect one person."

"And in the end, I killed her too."

Rey stares at Anakin. She wants to ask 'how?', 'why?'. So many questions run through her head. And disbelief. Because Anakin could never do that. She is the best person that Rey has ever known.

"I don't want to hurt you."

"I know. But - sometimes, when our emotions master us, we do things we don't actually want to do."

"I was angry, and my anger controlled me. And - I think she must have been angry too, over what I did. I betrayed her, after all, even if I did it to protect her."

"What would have done differently, knowing what you know now?"

The answer is actually 'stab Palpatine in the face' but that's not a useful lesson here. Probably. Stabbing Palpatine is admittedly usually a good bet but Anakin isn't sure how broadly applicable that is.

"I would talk to her more. Ask her what she wants me to do. Work with her, instead of against her."

"And if she'd wanted me to do nothing... I'd accept it. I - know now, that I can live without her. I didn't know that, back then."

"I don't know if I could live without you."

"You'd be able to. You're strong. And - life goes on. It always does. Wounds heal. Pain fades. I - eventually... I loved her so much. She was the center of my world. I thought of her whenever I needed love to draw on, and her death broke everything in me that could feel..."

"And. Thinking about her still hurts a little. Maybe it always will. But I found someone else to live for - someone else to die for - and then I accepted my role in her death over a decade ago, and - now I can think about the good parts, too." She pauses and looks away. "I'd like to tell you about her, I think," she says, softly. "So that - someone else will remember her."

Rey nods and wipes away her tears. She knows Anakin's words are true because Anakin doesn't lie, but... she's not sure she's as strong as that.

"Tell me. I want to know her."

Her answering smile's small but sincere.

And, slowly, she begins to talk about Elesse, her old teacher.

There's a lot to talk about, even just in Anakin's time as a padawan. (She isn't so eager to talk about the later parts, the war, the slow unraveling of democracy - but she won't run out of mission stories anytime soon.)

Rey is, as always, an attentive listener. She wants to know everything... though at some point she will have to sleep again.

Anakin lets her.

The next two years include more history from Anakin's own life - the end of the Old Republic, the rise and fall of the Galactic Empire, the Alliance and the New Republic. More about emotions, and philosophy, and more honest discussions of hard choices.

Rey meets her dream friend a few more times. He grows increasingly withdrawn, consumed by shadows and fear.

And then Anakin's away for a few days - she'd warned Rey she might be, to watch over her family -

She returns, a storm of grief in the Force, a roiling cloud of pain -

Anakin falls to her knees, body wracked with uncontrollable sobs.

Rey is by her side in an instant, dropping the hyperdrive piece she was working on - it doesn't matter.

"Anakin. Whats happened - are you okay?"

"Ben, he - he - he killed them, I - has no one learned from my mistakes, how can - "

She screams.

Rey doesn't flinch, she's steady. On the ground. A rock in the current. It's hard. Anakin's pain is her pain too. She closes her eyes and focuses. Reaches out with their bond. Trying to lend Anakin her strength.

Slowly, Anakin's passion swirls down, stills. Her breath evens out.

She's under her own control. She is the master, here, not her pain, not her grief or anger. She closes her eyes, releasing her emotions before they can drown her.

She clings to Rey all the while.

She's here. She's steady. She is in control. They are together.

"My grandson - Ben - he killed all of Luke's other students. Burned his temple. Luke and little Anakin were the only survivors when I left, and - little Anakin was badly hurt."

"Ben said he was finishing what I started. Destroying the Jedi."

She sends so much love through the bond.

"This isn't your fault. His choices are his own."

"I feel like I - should've done better. He's my family. They all are."

Rey sighs, her chest aching from Anakin's loss.

"You love them. They know that. But... you're dead, Anakin. It's a fluke that I can see you consistently." But she does pause. "Maybe we could be doing more. Is there anything you feel like we could do? I'm in this with you."

"Thank you. And I don't know. It - feels important, for some reason, that you stay on Jakku for now."

"But... Maybe I can practice - I don't know. Manifesting more. Showing myself to people, or at least reaching out with the Force. I healed you, that one time - I might be able to do more."

"And you mind-tricked Unkar that one time, don't forget. I've been his favourite scavenger ever since."

"Because you're the best scavenger."

Still, she smiles.

"I am fantastic, it's true."

She laughs.

"Rey - thank you. For being here. And for reminding me of who I am."

"There is literally no other place in the universe I'd rather be."

Anakin leans over.

Her emotions are still swamped with grief, but... There's a calmness to them, now. A determination.

Rey sends her all the love and affection she's feeling. It's as natural as breathing now.

"You're - good," she says, quietly.

"I have a great teacher."

"And I a great student."

Anakin steps up Rey's training. Keeps her using the light side - or whatever side Anakin uses when she brims with love - while easing her into right enough control she should survive using the dark.

Slowly, Anakin opens up about her own history.

She was Darth Vader, once, a name even Rey will have heard. Her son - Luke Skywalker - is good and brilliant and kind, and Anakin worries about how he's gone into exile, and he broke the numb shell she'd wrapped herself in, reminded her who she is, and she gladly died for him, and he stayed with her as her injuries took her -

He's good and forgiving and kind.

Leia is less forgiving, less kind, but no less brilliant, no less amazing.

(Rey's dream friend starts shutting her out or lashing out at her. Anakin teaches her more through, more subtle shields. More control of her own mind. It's hard work. It's probably needed.)

Anakin also teaches her the basics of lightsaber combat, though she bemoans the current scarcity of lightsaber crystals that means Rey might have a hard time making her own even once they're off planet.

Anakin is a good, knowledgable teacher. The days and then years can be kept quite full.

Rey could probably leave pretty easily. Unkar Plutt gets in a good quality ship; Anakin laughs a bit hysterically when she identifies it as the Millenium Falcon, and gets it put under Rey's purview to fix.

But... Anakin has a feeling.

She thinks they're needed here.