adarkergray | Kenoma

Kenoma

Previously:
Escape From Starkiller Base
At the Monuments of Madness
A Living Weapon

To Jacob's surprise, they made it to Ahch-To's system without incident - but then, it was clear now that the Force was on their side. As per his calculations, they'd dropped out of hyperspace a few hundred thousand kilometers away, just beyond its outermost moon's orbit, and as they headed toward the planet at sublight speeds, he tried to ignore the way his protective instincts were going into overdrive.

However, the closer they got to the planet, the more he couldn't help being aware that everyone there, everyone they were going to see, was someone who'd hurt Kylo terribly, and Force, how could Jacob even begin to justify taking him down there? To put him in that level of danger, in the kind of condition he was in--

He made himself take a deep breath, though the fingers of his free hand were clamped tightly around the hilt of one of his lightsabers. The urge was incredibly strong to tell Kylo that he couldn't in good conscience do this, that there had to be another, better way to defeat Snoke, and they would find it - but, deep down, he knew that if there was, the Force would have shown it to Kylo instead. He had to have faith in his master, and in the Force.

Instead, right now, he had more sympathy than ever for why Snoke wanted to destroy the Force's will - not that he had any sympathy for Snoke himself. That thought was enough to settle his nerves slightly by reminding what they were here for, why it was important, why they could all work together just this once.

Snoke had to die. That was the one thing they all could agree on.

Finally, he calmed his mind enough to push his senses outward through the Force, to see whose presence he could detect. Even this close in, he still couldn't pick up Skywalker, but he could sort out Rey and General Organa from the background energy of the planet. He turned to Kylo. "...Your mom's still here. Do you want me to ask her to leave?"

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There was a flicker of recognition in Kylo’s mind as he felt the technique take shape. The wound transfer technique that Jacob had created and used on him so long ago had expanded beyond its original design.

No, the apprentice was no longer sacrificing his own strength, or taking pain and injury onto himself to heal his master. Now, he too was a condiit of the Force. He was in both bodies, and both minds, at once. What Snoke did to the boy would be returned in kind.

If only, the same could be done for Kylo... what sweet revenge that would be.

No, even if it were possible, it would be far too risky to allow Snoke access to the Force wound. He had to die here and now.

For the first time, Kylo’s Force projection moved aboard the Supremacy. It flickered from the exertion, but didn’t fade. All of the children were staring, especially the one that had just been brought back to life.

“It’s all right. I have you.”

The message was for the children, but also for Jacob. As he followed Snoke down into death, Kylo stood strong - an anchor with for his apprentice should Snoke try to take him down with him.

“I have you.”

Right now, Jacob was grateful for that anchor, because Snoke still hadn't stopped fighting him. And though Jacob had done this dozens of times before, getting inside Snoke's mind was proving to be far more challenging than he'd anticipated. It kept twisting out of his grasp, writhing and sinuous like a nest full of serpents, leaving him with only brief glimpses of what he needed; however, he refused to be defeated. It was time to try a new tactic.

I forgive you, Snoke. And though there will always be things I disagree with you on, there are parts of your vision that are worth saving, as well. Please, please trust me to carry them on for you.

Snoke was genuinely startled to find that he actually meant it - and that gave Jacob the vulnerability he needed to get in.

Jacob knew exactly what he was after; however, that didn't stop Snoke from trying to derail him, still. You should have trusted me, Icarus. There are dangers out there in the cosmos that are far greater than anything you've faced before, or anything you could comprehend. You aren't ready for them, and without me, you will be powerless against them.

But I won't be without you, will I? I'll still have your work, and my master's legacy. With a sharp twist, he was finally able to break through into the memories he'd been seeking.

The scope of what Jacob found was far beyond what he'd expected. Snoke was leaving behind five separate facilities, hidden away at the ends of the galaxy, to carry on his plans; there, Jacob's research was still being carried on and developed, along with that of others, some of whom Jacob knew, and some he'd never met before. Once the news of Snoke's death reached them, they'd scatter like cancerous cells into the body of the galaxy, each carrying vital pieces to the spread of the disease. But, for once, Jacob knew something Snoke didn't. He knew all the blind ends and snags and pitfalls inherent in the research, knew that it was years away from being able to accomplish anything more than what Snoke had already done. The disease could be halted. The Force's immune system would catch up with it before it had a chance to flourish.

He pulled as much information about the locations and people involved out of Snoke's mind as he could before, finally, the last traces of it slipped away. As Snoke became one with the Force, Jacob felt the same things he always had: acceptance, and understanding. At last, Snoke was at peace with the Force, and in that moment, Jacob knew he would've given him more of the information he sought, if there had been anything left to give. But he was already gone.

To Kylo, whose body and mind had been so intimately intwined with the Supreme Leader’s will for so long, felt the blow of his death like a shockwave. It took every ounce of control he had to hold onto Jacob’s mind as the Force thrust him out of the projection.

He tried to reach out toward the children - at the very least to imprint in their minds that this wasn’t the end, that they weren’t alone and that he would return. He wanted so desperately to give them that much, something that, at their age, he craved - but the connection was severed. They were gone. Or rather, he was gone. Half a galaxy stood between them again.

Back in the cave, Rey was shaking. Sweat dripped into blurry eyes. She lost focus long enough to wonder how long any of them, herself included, could keep this up.

Then came the same shockwave, ripplies spreading out across the galaxy. She saw Kylo’s eyes open as he gasped for air. She felt Jacob’s body move behind her. She heard herself shout, “You did it! I felt it!” before Kylo went completely limp in her lap.

“Oh no... no no no no...” she shook him, scramblling to pick up where she’d left off and losing the last of her focus to panic. “Breathe! Kriffing breathe!”

The projection broke so suddenly that it took Jacob a moment to realize exactly why it was that he abruptly found himself in an incredible amount of pain. Every fiber of his being burned with the exertion of channeling energies in the Force far beyond what it was meant to endure, for an extended period of time - when he and Kylo had fought Thuban, the true apex of the battle had been less than a minute, despite feeling like it took hours, and had allowed Jacob to escape relatively unscathed. The confrontation with Snoke, however, had been every bit as long as it felt, and Jacob fought desperately to cling onto consciousness.

The only thing that allowed him to marshal the last of his strength was the knowledge that his master needed him.

He collapsed next to Kylo, his hand on his master's chest as he focused what little energy he was still able to command into keeping Kylo's heart beating. "Rey," he croaked, "do you know how to give rescue breaths?"

Chewing away at the back of his mind was the knowledge of what they'd done, or rather, what they'd left undone - they'd left their children alone in a room full of corpses without making sure there was anyone on the ship who would see to their needs, make sure they were seen back to their quarters and fed and taken care of until the Supremacy arrived at Ahch-To, what Jacob knew to be its inevitable destination. However, he had no way to fix that now; the only thing he could do now was try to make sure they all survived this.

Had Kylo been stronger and healthier, he would have stayed longer. He would have spoken with the children and tried to reassure them of their safety. He would have seen the ship safely to Ahch-To. Most importantly, he would have eased them both out of the projection. But Kylo had completed what the Force willed. His spirit, and perhaps his body, had already overstayed their welcome.

Rey gasped in shock as Jacob basically collapsed beside her. "Res..rescue breaths? You mean, breathe for him?"

She'd never done it herself, but had seen others try. At the time, she remembered feeling resentful - why would anyone do such a thing? Another mouth to feed meant more competition for already scarce resources. Not that it mattered. The man died.

Kylo couldn't.

Rey nodded, "Yeah, I've seen it."

A few basic instructions - tilt the head back, pinch the nostrils closed, etc. - and Rey could handle the rest. Even though it seemed hopeless on the surface, she kept going. She could still feel the Force within him, just as she could feel the Force wound desperately preying on everything around it (including them). The Force did not cling to the dead. Therefore, somehow, he was still clinging to life.

"How long..." she hissed quickly between breaths. "...can we keep this up?"

"As long as it takes for him to start breathing on his own," Jacob panted. "...What we really need to do is use the Force healing technique on him, but after what we just pulled, I can barely even draw enough energy from the Force to keep both of us alive." Darkness was swirling around the edges of his vision, and the only thing keeping him from closing his eyes and letting it drag him down was the knowledge that if he did, neither he nor Kylo might ever awaken. There was no way he could draw in the amount of power that Rey needed for the technique to be successful.

Then, he felt the mental equivalent of a tap on his shoulder. Icarus, let us help you.

It was Leia, and he could sense Luke's mental presence with her. They were in the portion of the Jedi temple that was on the surface, and he could sense they'd gone through a battle of their own, as well - evidently the process of shaking Snoke's influence out of Luke's mind hadn't been as simple as he'd implied. Either way, they were all finally, unquestionably on the same side in this. And no matter how much Jacob and Kylo hated and mistrusted them, they needed Luke and Leia's help. They'd die down here without it.

Kylo, I'm sorry... we have no choice. He squeezed his eyes shut - then opened them again when he realized he might alarm Rey - before reaching out to Leia again. Okay. I'll walk you through what you need to do.

Of couse, Kylo Ren was in no position to argue. He’d done what the Force had willed him to do, and without the intervention of those who could bend the Force to their will, he would soon become one with it.

Rey was shocked less by Jacob’s mental conversation with Leia than by the sudden realization that she could feel more than one person up there...

“Luke!” She exclaimed between rescue breaths, “I can feel him through the Force! I can feel him!”

"Guess he finally got his head on straight," Jacob muttered, fighting to keep all of them connected mentally and on the same wavelength for what would come next.

I can't help you by showing you what to do - my strength is almost gone. All I can do is explain it to you, and offer my memory of how it's supposed to feel. He tried to guide General Organa through the subtle and precise manipulations of the Force that Jacob had needed to use, to generate the constructive interference which would build a standing wave of energy with enough amplitude for Rey to draw off of. However, he soon had to fight back the urge to grow impatient with Leia, when she couldn't get the hang of it as fast as he had wanted - and then, the energy he felt wasn't just the planet's.

It was Luke's, as well, and it was not even close to being enough.

Skywalker, you idiot hypocrite, Jacob snarled into his mind. Even if what you were trying to do wouldn't be worse than useless, Kylo doesn't want that from you. He only wants your life if he can take it fair and square. He had no idea if that was true, but maybe saying it would be what it took to get through to him. Whether you're trying to sabotage us, or trying to support us, you need to do it the right way.

That, finally, was enough of a shock to set them all right. At last, he felt the power of the Force concentrating where - and how - Rey needed it.

Edited 2019-05-30 00:42 (UTC)

“Can you breathe for him?” She asked Jacob. “Doing both... trying the healing...”

Regretfully, she needed to trade, despite his exhaustion.

Indeed, it took Rey longer to channel the energy that came from both Luke and Leia than when it came from Jacob. He was more precise, more practiced in using the dark side, she reasoned. But once she recognized the flow of the Force for what it was, she got to work. She took over for Jacob on repairing his body, at least to the extent that she could.

Enough to stabilize him. Enough to get them both out of the cave alive. Enough to get them to whatever medical equipment Jacob had on board his ship. Enough. Good enough...

It took a moment for Jacob to get his aching limbs under him, but force of will kept him there as he switched off with Rey. Just staying upright and breathing for Kylo, keeping his heart beating, took so much focus that Jacob could barely keep tabs on the healing technique; however, finally, he felt Kylo's heart rate steady, and a moment later, he began breathing on his own. Jacob collapsed next to him again, intending to just rest for a moment, but he was unconscious as soon as he hit the floor.

Awareness found its way back to him slowly, in stages, and one of the earliest was realizing that he was dreaming - and then, far less comforting, the degree to which his consciousness was disconnected from his body. He could feel that thread of connection back, but it was slim; however, he didn't feel as panicked as he might have expected, either. Finally, he realized what was going on, where he was being drawn - and what was most important for him to do now. Instead of reaching out to the children, he instead made contact with another mind.

Sleep, Hux.

He didn't spend much energy constructing the shared dream state he summoned Hux into, letting Hux's mind construct it instead - and he was somewhat surprised to find that it still remained dark and spare, with just bare walls like an unfurnished compartment aboard a star destroyer. Hux himself looked so terrible that Jacob would've felt sorry for him, if he were anyone else: even for Hux, he was ghastly pale and thin, and he looked incredibly haggard, with dark circles around his eyes. When he asked Jacob, "Are you here to kill me, then?" it almost sounded like he would've found it a relief.

"No. There are still many important things left for you to do." Jacob knelt briefly at his feet. "The Supreme Leader is dead. Long live the Supreme Leader." When he rose, he had the feeling that the look on Hux's face would've been the same if Jacob had ripped one of his limbs off, and his mind hadn't yet had a chance to absorb the shock. "You will live to enjoy the position as long as you ensure that Lord Kylo Ren's children are taken care of. See to it that they're taken to their quarters, and that they eat and drink. Continue the Supremacy's course toward Ahch-To, and my master and I will rendezvous with you along the way. We'll set the location once we're back in comm contact."

Only then did some hint of relief appear on Hux's features. "And then you'll take them? You'll save us?"

Jacob cocked his head at that. "Save you?"

"There is something... not right about them. The entire crew has had nightmares since their arrival, and the fights that have broken out among the crew have only been escalating. It likely will not be long before people start dying. Icarus... there is something monstrous about them."

Jacob let the dream begin to twist into a nightmare, allowing his own physical form to begin shifting - drew from the ancient, sinister shapes of primeval fear that lived in both Hux's reptile hindbrain and his own in reshaping his appearance. "Don't you ever let me catch you talking that way about my kids again. If I do, or if you try to hurt them, or my master... anything they could have done to you will seem merciful compared to what I will do. I've had years more practice at being monstrous than they have. But consider this, Supreme Leader: I'm a lot easier to keep on your side. From here on out, if you are good to me and mine, I'll be kind to you."

Hux whimpered softly in the back of his throat, and that was the last sound Jacob heard before, abruptly, he found himself awake and back in the cave again.

Edited 2019-06-09 02:19 (UTC)

Kylo woke with a jolt - his spirit slamming back into his body hard and fast enough that it hurt. His throat was raw. His limbs were heavy. He was exhausted to his very core, to the point that even the Force wound felt unusually empty.

Even it seemed to know that he should have been dead.

He tried to move, but couldn't quite muster the strength to do more than turn his head. Jacob was lying by one side. Rey was sitting on the other, catching her breath and muttering, "You did it. I did it. We did it. He's dead... and you're alive..."

Reaching out with the Force, he could feel that she was telling the truth. He could also feel his mother's presence above him. And with her, that of another.

Strength or not, by sheer force of will and a now-raging Force wound, he sat up. "Skywalker!"

"Kylo, he was helping. He and Leia were both gathering energy for the healing technique. Jacob was too exhausted from the battle to do it and I couldn't have healed you alone."

"I don't want his help!" he growled.

"We needed his help!"

If Jacob tried to get a word in, Kylo didn't let him. "No! We don't!"

Rey fell backwards as Kylo somehow stumbled to his feet and toward where the feeling was strongest. If he could have cut through the ceiling by glare alone, Skywalker would have already fallen into the depths of the underwater cave. (Alas, that would have been far too easy, and not even remotely satisfying.)

Instead, he reached out with his hands, and telekinetically broke apart the stone.

"Kylo! Stop!" Rey scrambled after him, spinning and sweeping him off his feet in one swift motion. At the same time, as a sizable chunk of the ceiling broke away. It splashed into the water surrounding them. Thank the Force that it didn't affect the structural integrity of either of the chambers.

Rey physically pinned him down - a scene that Luke and Leia could now see with their own eyes.

Jacob couldn't even manage to get to his feet; ever fiber of his being still felt like it was burning. Instead, he half crawled, half dragged himself over to collapse again by his master's side. "Kylo, I'm so sorry. All of this is my fault. I... I let them help, because I wasn't strong enough to do it on my own. I'm so sorry." His focus right now was on just trying to redirect Kylo's anger away from Rey, to keep him from lashing out at her. "...Skywalker was willing to sacrifice his life for yours, so that you would be healed. I felt it. And I told him that the last thing you wanted was for him to be selfish and arrogant enough to try to make any kind of 'noble sacrifice' for you."

Meanwhile, he spoke telepathically to Leia and Luke, trying to defuse the situation. You both need to leave now. Leia, go to the other entrance of the cave and get our climbing ropes. Luke, just get the hell away from here, as far as you can go, and stay there. With them out of reach, Kylo might eventually settle down, slightly - just enough for them to get out of here. Beyond that, Jacob would deal with the consequences as they came.

Conflicted emotions rained down from above, but within a minute or so, Luke Skywalker was gone. Leia was still there, doing as Jacob asked and retrieving their climbing supplies. She affixed a line where the rock was most stable, giving them a way out of the caves that didn’t involve the long underwater trek.

“Would you rather have died?! I couldn’t have done it without their help!” Rey refused to apologize, but she said the same things.

“I will not... be indebted to that... that man! He doesn’t... get to change that!” Kylo spat as Rey kept him pinned. For a moment, he was like a rabid dog, weak but desperate to fight until his last breath. For a moment, he was every bit the monster she remembered. He threw her off once with the Force, but she fought back and took him down again.

Only once Skywalker had finally fled, and Kylo could feel his presence in the Force vanish again entirely, did he begin to calm down.

Jacob’s words must have stung.

Rey slapped Kylo in the face, and then turned to the rope Leia had dropped for them. “I helped you destroy Snoke. I’m done.”

Jacob finally managed to sit up, but he had no idea how long it'd be until he managed much else. "Rey..." he called after her, and when she turned back, briefly, he continued, "...Thank you. For everything you've done for us." It had been tempting to say something acerbic for her, or to stick up for his master, but with the state of mind they all were in right now, it wouldn't gain any of them anything. This was the closest he could get to salvaging the situation - and he was conscious of the importance of that, when each of them had only mastered half of the healing technique that Kylo still needed.

As Rey pulled herself up and out of the cave, Jacob contemplated how the hell he was going to get himself and Kylo out. He could still barely move, and all he wanted to do was sleep for about a month straight. At least trying to draw strength from the Force was starting to hurt a little less.

He turned back to Kylo, the utter exhaustion evident in his voice when he said, "...I'm sorry I couldn't do a better job of protecting you this time."

Had it merely been Leia there assisting, Kylo might have swallowed his pride the way he'd done so many times since they arrived on Ahch-to. But Skywalker was another matter entirely.

Feeling him through the Force after all these years reawakened more than just a burning hate for the man. Feelings of fear and betrayal coupled with the insecurities of a child who did the best he could with the nightmare he was thrust into... oh, it fed that Force wound. It gave Kylo a will to fight that, at the moment, was necessary for their survival.

It was that will that gave Kylo the strength to force that shell of a body to rise. It was with that will that he draped Jacob's arm over his back and hoisted his apprentice up to his feet. It was with that will that he ignored the man's apology in favor of leading them both to that waiting rope.

"We'll deal with that... later..." he grunted. That will would not sustain him indefinitely. "Before later never comes..."

Jacob wrapped his arms around Kylo, leaning against him for a moment - partially to steady himself, but also in part because proximity to the Force wound actually made it easier for him to draw strength from the Force without making it feel like every cell in his body was spontaneously trying to escape in a different direction at once. "...Yes, master."

He dug their climbing harnesses out of the pack, got them both secured into them - the harnesses had a locking ratchet gear as a last-ditch fall arrestor mechanism, and he could at least summon up enough strength in the Force to keep tension on the mechanism, to keep them moving one way up the rope. It was the only way Jacob, at least, was going to make it to the top.

The climb back up wasn't that far, but it still felt impossibly long and arduous. Finally, Jacob dragged himself and Kylo up over the edge of the hole into the Jedi temple, and while it was tempting to allow himself a moment to rest, he knew he'd never make it back to the ship if he did. The most important thing right now was to see to Kylo, and then... after that, maybe Jacob would just pass out on the floor of the cabin. It didn't matter much.

His practice sessions with the Force wound, though few, did give him valuable insight in forcing it to serve as an energy reserve. So, when Kylo felt his apprentice clinging to the Force, he shared that energy willingly. It gave his body a reason to draw in more, and likewise, to keep moving.

“Embrace the Dark Side... Use that power... We can hold... ourselves together!”

From a distance, Leia watched Jacob and her son emerge from the cave. It was plain to see they were barely holding each other up. They’d done it. Snoke’s essence, that vile cancer that had stretched its tendrils through the galaxy and pulled her family apart at the seams, was gone. It was a massive victory, and yet, it was bittersweet.

A part of her wanted to intervene, to help them both back to one of the huts so they could just rest. but she held back. It wouldn’t be welcome. They weren’t exactly on the same side. And the truce they had may have just expired.

It was a difficult trek back to the ship, but they would make it.

And if they didn’t, then, and only then, would Leia come to their aid.

The trek back up to the ship felt almost impossibly longer than the climb up out of the cave. Still, Jacob and Kylo managed it, and as soon as they were up the boarding ramp, Jacob managed to summon just enough of his strength to see to his master. He stripped Kylo down and stuck him in the sonic just long enough to get the salt off his skin, then changed the dressing over his central line before getting him back into clean robes, and settled him back into the bunk.

Almost as soon as he'd gotten Kylo hooked back up to the IV machine, and gotten nutrient and fluid drips running again, his vision began tunneling. "...The Supremacy is already on its way here, but I wouldn't be surprised if Hux sends us a course-intercept in less than a standard day. If you have to get us off the planet before I'm awake again, just make sure you have the entire burst transmission code from the slicer before you leave." He hoped they wouldn't need to leave before he could talk Rey around into applying the full extent of the Force healing technique to Kylo, but he had to be prepared for whatever circumstances they faced next.

Briefly, Jacob had considered passing out right next to Kylo in the bunk, but his body needed much deeper and more extensive healing. A bacta tank would probably have been helpful, but that was the one thing he hadn't managed to acquire for his ship just yet - and, if he had, he'd probably just put Kylo in it instead; for now, the sensory deprivation tank was all he had. In the long run, it might be better, since it'd allow his body to heal itself naturally, and to adjust to its new parameters in the Force.

He set the safety parameters in the tank to be tighter than usual - his blood pressure and heart rate wouldn't have to drop as far as normal for the interior of the tank to automatically illuminate and drain, and he set it to generate an external alert as well, just in case that wasn't enough, and Kylo needed to pull him out.

It wasn’t long before Kylo could feel the destructive effect of the Force wound start to take its toll. Both of their bodies had been pushed to their absolute limits, and for Kylo, that was a tremendous setback in terms of healing and quite possibly a resurgence of that which they had been trying desperately to destroy.

But still, he held on, giving Jacob an energy well to draw from, to keep his apprentice on his feet until he could rest. (Because no matter how many times Kylo might have suggested otherwise, Jacob would see to his needs first. Only once he was sure his master was stable would he see to his own.)

It was a blessing, then, when he felt Jacob slipping into a meditative trance. It took nearly an hour for Kylo to relax his body and mind enough to let the energy draw subside. And while there were a few nihilistic thoughts that bubbled to the surface, they faded just like the Force wound’s pull. Not long after he reached a stable baseline, Kylo Ren passed out as well.

The inside of the tank was still dark when Jacob awakened, which was a good sign. However, it didn't stay dark for long; its interior lights automatically brightened in response to the increase in his heart rate and respiration, and then partially dimmed again when Jacob pulled up the ship's records on the internal holodisplay to start tracking a few of the more important things he'd missed.

He'd been in the depths of a meditative trance for twenty hours. The slicer had already left, but he'd sent the code for the burst transmission over to Jacob's ship first. More importantly, however, the results had come in - not long after they'd all left to kill Snoke - on the samples that Jacob and Rey had used the Force healing technique on. For the ones where Rey had used her own energy, the presence of malignant cells was decreased by more than an order of magnitude; on the one where they had drawn energy from the Force itself, they had dropped below detectable levels.

He had to convince Rey to take one last crack at this.

Extending his senses through the Force beyond the edges of his body still ached, in a strange way, but his range didn't seem to be impaired; he could tell that Rey, Leia, Chewbacca, and Luke were all still here, and that Kylo was sleeping peacefully for the moment. The solution bags on his IV machine needed to be changed out, but that wouldn't take long.

Finally, Jacob searched for any transmissions from any other ships of the First Order fleet. The transmission from the Supremacy came in right as he was looking for it, and contained their intercept course, along with one word.

Hurry.

Which they would, but first, he had to do everything he could for Kylo.

As soon as he was out of the tank and clothed, he swapped out Kylo's IV bags, then made sure he was still resting as comfortably as possible. The draw of the Force wound was the strongest he'd felt it since he'd pulled his master off of the Finalizer, and even behind its presence, he could sense how much Kylo's condition had worsened. He sighed softly, and reached out to gently stroke Kylo's sunken cheek for a moment; he had to convince Rey to lend them her assistance one last time.

Fortunately, he didn't have to face Luke or Leia to meet up with her. Rey was back in the aboveground portion of the Jedi Temple, and Jacob ignored the persistent ache in his joints and muscles as he picked his way down to her. "...Rey? Can we talk for a moment?"

The long stretch of deep sleep proved how much their minds and bodies needed to recover from the battle. For Kylo, those twenty hours had their ebbs and flows, their dreams and their fits. But when Jacob stroked his cheek, he hardly moved. A soft groan escaped his lips, but nothing more.

He needed to rest.

More than that, he needed healing.

Rey must have known that. She may have even felt it through the Force. When Jacob approached the entrance to the temple, she wasn’t surprised. She wasn’t outwardly angry either. She wanted to be angry, but her mind was like the sea - mostly calm, with sharp waves breaking against the edges from time to time.

“The Force feels... different... with Snoke gone.”

Rey let out a long sigh.

“It’s strange. I... I should hate him.” She tilted her head toward the direction Jacob came from. She was no longer speaking about Snoke, but about Kylo. “He’d kill his own family right now if he had the strength to do it. I can’t forgive that. I can’t allow that! But... the way he feels in the Force. It... it hurts... It feels like something is tearing him apart and eating him alive.”

Jacob sighed softly. There were any number of defenses or justifications he could make for his master, from the fact that Luke and Leia had given up any claim of familial bond between themselves and Kylo years ago, to the full depths of the reasons why Kylo would never be able to forgive Luke - who, quite frankly, probably knew he deserved whatever was coming to him.

Jacob also knew that none of those defenses or justifications would accomplish what he was after now. "He isn't going to have that chance, and not just because we don't have time for it before we leave here. After this, Kylo and I are out of the war between the New Republic and the First Order. We're going to have something a lot more important to occupy our time for a long while after this - the eldest of his children are only about six standard years old." He'd been approaching Rey as he spoke, and he sat down across from her now. "...And children that young shouldn't have to see their father in the kind of condition he's in now."

He didn't know what Snoke had done to those children already, or had forced them to do - but what Jacob did know was that he was their parent now, just as much as Kylo was, and he was going to protect them in any way he could from suffering any further trauma on top of it all. "Please, Rey. I can't heal him by myself."

The look on Jacob’s face all but echoed what the Force had been telling her. “He’s dying. Isn’t he...”

As much as she despised Kylo Ren for killing Han, for hurting her friends, for throwing away everything she always wanted... Rey couldn’t bear the burden of being the reason those children would grow up like she did - lost and alone. No one deserved that.

More than anything, Jacob hadn't wanted to admit to himself, just how bad it really was - but now that Rey had confronted him with it, he had no choice. "This is the worst he's been since I rescued him from the Finalizer. And, as enmeshed as he was with Snoke before... it isn't outside the realm of possibility that he's dying now. Or that he wouldn't survive long enough for medical treatment to help."

But Jacob wouldn't let that happen. No matter what it took, he wouldn't let it happen. "But together, we have what it takes to save him." He got to his feet, and extended his hand to Rey to help her up.

The Force certainly spoke the truth.

She wondered, briefly, if Leia had sensed it too. Or if Luke even could, having shut himself off from the Force yet again. But she was quickly brought back to the present when Jacob extended his hand.

“The technique we were practicing on the samples? It worked?”

Hesitantly, she reached out to take it.

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