This story is currently being cross-posted in tandem with my Archive of Our Own account where I go by the username 'clashingHarmony'. Because of 's limitations, I cannot put a full summary of this story front and center, so I will be doing it here for full disclosure. This is primarily a reader-insert fic, but my goal is to provide a different experience for those who found the ending of the sequel trilogy to be lackluster at best and disappointing at worst, and prove that a reader-insert fic can be just as compelling and engaging as something strictly canon-compliant. We will be delving into mature themes, such as violence, character death, and sexual situations, and I will add warnings to particular chapters as they come so nobody is caught unaware.

Ultimately, this story was born as a plot-bunny that refused to leave me alone until I finally penned out the beginning at 2 am, and now I have no choice but to follow where it leads me. I hope you enjoy it as it unfolds as much as I enjoy writing it.

You stand on a precipice. A razor-sharp edge.

Dawn is nearby. The sky is soft blue, caught just before the break of sunlight.

You can feel the heat of an endless desert. You can hear the hum of mechanized ventilation. Both are true. Neither are present.

She's calloused and thin but muscular and hard on your left. Blue. "Tell me again," she whispers. You can't focus on her face, she glows too bright.

He's strong and lithe but dangerous and cold on your right. Red. "I need to hear you," he pleads. You can't see his features, he sinks too deep into the darkness.

You are caught in the middle. "Triad."

"I don't know what that means," she cries.

"Show me how to understand," he demands.

They reach for you. Outshined, overshadowed.

Gray.

You tumble end over end into the void. They stretch out their hands but no matter how hard you try, you will never reach them.

—x—

You begin to feel it again.

It starts off as a tingle. A gentle sensation that tickles between your temples, teases from one side of your thoughts to another. It makes you feel floaty, a little disoriented, until you almost trust the feeling. Then that tickle sinks deeper into your skull, claws threatening to tear you apart from the inside-out. Speckles of colors flicker in your vision and you struggle to keep from passing out or throwing up from the pain.

It's a terrifying new development.

"Another migraine?" One of your crew mates whispers with concern when they see you sink into a dark corner of your current ship, and you give them a strained smile as answer. They pat your shoulder and promise to bring you water and some painkillers, even though you know it won't help.

This is not a migraine.

It's a call, a summons that echoes into a roar that manifests into near-blinding scorching pain that threatens to leave you sobbing and retching almost three times a week. It never lasts longer than an hour, and then the feeling is gone as if it was never there.

"Are you sure you don't want us to stop in to see a doctor next time we're grounded?" Your captain asks you when the most recent one fades, and you force your lips to form as reassuring of a smile as you can.

"No, that's alright," you reassure this man who barely knows you, who will forget you when this job is done, whose worry is professional at best. "My father used to have headaches too, I think it's just a… hereditary problem."

It's close enough to the truth. But it's easier than admitting to these strangers that the Force has been screaming in your head for the past month, and it was starting to get more and more insistent that you listen.

—x—

You never particularly liked the Jedi.

Well, that wasn't entirely fair. You hadn't met any Jedi and couldn't speak of any personally , but as a concept, as an order, the stories you heard just tended to make you feel a general discomfort that turned your stomach away from even the best retellings of Luke Skywalker destroying the Empire.

It wasn't that the stories didn't inspire you, quite the contrary. You took to interstellar travel primarily because of those old war stories. But there was something about what the stories said about the Jedi way that rubbed you oddly. "Bringing balance to the Force," had been remembered as their creed long after the order went extinct, but you could never truly agree with their methods. Balance, you reasoned, should result from an equilibrium. Not from an over abundance of light.

There was also the whole thing about kidnapping small children, which wouldn't have sat right with you even if you hadn't been raised in sheltered isolation for that very reason.

"The brighter the light, the stronger the shadow," your father had whispered, after you watched the grainy holo depicting the newly-formed First Order destroy the first planet that refused to bend their knee. He had turned to you and said, "Tuck away your crystal."

So your crystal stayed, tucked away forever on a leather cord around your neck that kept it warm against your breast. With any luck, it would never see the light of day again.

But the Force was insistent. Clamoring around inside your skull no matter how desperately you willed it to remain silent as it had for so many years in the back of your mind. It would not cease, not until you finished your job and said goodbye to your crew for the last six months and ventured out on your own again.

You felt a bit as if you were indulging a toddler, if you were being honest. It drew a suffocating hand around your lungs and tugged you along through the starport city, driving a wedge of doubt into the pit of your stomach as you left your most recent crew behind. "Trust in the Force above all else," your father had said instead of saying goodbye.

You wandered. You wondered. Your crystal hummed, a childlike energy in tune with your own, as the sensation in your thoughts drew you further and further down into the city underbelly. Down here, less savory market stalls had been set up on the street corners, displaying disassembled droid parts and colorful spices strung up from poles to dry. You felt your lip curling at the sight of an insectoid individual attempting to ply their "live wares" onto passers-by and wondered why in the universe your supposed destiny would lead you down here.

A glint of sunlight hits your eyes between the towering skyscrapers above your head. Sand, the vision whispers, stretching as far as my eyes can see. Sunburnt skin, prickling on my cheeks and nose.

You shake the images away, scowling deeper. Where are you supposed to find sand in a city like this?

Sometimes you wish you could speak to the Force directly. It would, at the very least, make you feel better to yell about all the grief it's been causing you lately.

Sometimes, you hate that you feel it so intimately. Sensitivity, your father had called it. It could be an immense help in a firefight and got more than one of your crews out of more than one sticky situation, but you knew it was also a dangerous liability. Instincts or no, training or no, it would be easy for anyone else with a small amount of sensitivity to pick you out of a crowd like this with your mind so open. But if you closed it—

Boots heavy on polished floors, my cape billows behind me as I storm down the corridor. Heads turn and knees quake as I pass, their terror makes me strong—

I feel you, where—

You shake your head and press on through the black market stalls, ignoring the voices trying to chip their way into your thoughts. It's not worth it, but the feeling —you can't shake it and you can't escape it. Your dreams are a drug you will never be free of.

Your feet slow to a stop. Soft music is drifting over you, and it takes a moment for you to realize that it is coming from outside your head. You turn to face the source, and find a grim-looking bouncer is giving you an unimpressed look for standing in front of his door for half a second too long. You brush past him with your head held high as the fist in your lungs bids you, and leave the midday sun behind as you step into a dimly lit cantina. The music continues uninterrupted as you drift your way inside, compelled to take a seat in an inset booth along the walls of the bar.

It's been too long since you've had time to yourself like this. The music is mellow and pleasing for a bar so deep in the underbelly, nothing like the broadcasts that your last crew enjoyed, or even the one before that. You had been taking jobs left and right for the past year, trying to shake off an impending sense of anxiety that had taken root in the bottom of your stomach. You realize now that the feeling was likely the Force's first method of persuasion. Your headaches are the second.

A waitress floats up to you, a smile too easy on her face to be forced. You doubt they get many women here. "What'll it be, sweetheart?"

Sweetheart. I'm dying of thirst in the desert. Two portions. Only two portions. I can make it last. It has to last. One more night. One more-

"Water, please," your voice scratches harshly. She looks momentarily concerned as you clear your throat and repeat yourself. You're getting tired of strangers showing you concern.

She shashays off with a twirl of her short skirt and you sink into the rough upholstery of your seat. You rub your temples and sigh heavily, once again wondering why you're here. The Force has gone silent and released its hold on your lungs, at least for the moment. Whatever it wants from you, it wants you to be here.

You trace your thumbnails into the chipped edges of the table as your mind wanders over your last few jobs. Life as a smuggler wasn't an easy one, but it was safer than mercenary work and it kept you out of the First Order's eyes—at least for the most part. You were safer the further away from them you could be, and hiding as a smuggler kept you just noticeable enough on their radar to ignore you.

Black leather. Heavy breathing. I see you again. Where are you. Show me. WHERE ARE YOU.

Metal under my fingernails. Dust in my lungs. Aching and heavy. Just a little further. Just a little higher. Show me where—

Where—

Where—

"You okay, sugar?"

You pop your eyes open. The waitress has set your water down on the table in front of you and you stare at it for a moment with eyes that are not your own. A hand wrapped in thick dirty cloth reaches up. A hand gloved in black leather picks up the glass. You press it to your lips and take a sip.

"Fine," you smile tightly. You're getting very good at lying to strangers. She returns your grin and you start to wonder if maybe you're just going insane.

She leaves you with your water and you focus on the here and the now. You watch the ice in your drink float and clink next to each other as it slowly melts in the warmer liquid. You listen to the music. You hear the faint murmuring of common conversations between the other patrons of your momentary refuge, picking up bits and pieces of conversation and even a more bestial tongue in between. This is where you are, thank the Force for that. Now you just had to figure out why.

Minutes go by of your silence. Then a new feeling, a different feeling, solidifies in your spine and manifests as unease creeping up the back of your throat. It's your only warning before two stormtroopers come storming into the cantina.

The music abruptly cuts off.

The two soldiers stomp further into the bar and you feel like your nerves are lighting on fire. You want to bolt but your instincts are keeping you rooted to your seat. Dimly, you feel a whisper of reassurance in the back of your head, but you shake it off. This is not good.

A shifty mole-faced individual slinks out of the back and wrings his hands nervously as he approaches the stormtroopers. "S-something I could help you with, g-gentlemen—"

He scarcely has the words out before the trooper on the left says, "We've been given orders to search for Resistance sympathizers in this establishment."

You feel another tingle. A very familiar tingle. Not here! You hiss to nothing. Not now!

Behind you, you hear the sound of a chair scraping against the stone floor.

"Cooperate, and this will be painless for everyone," the second trooper continues from his partner, and as a unit they split off and begin their sweep on either side of the bar.

You clutch your water and struggle to stamp down your panic. This is exactly why you had been trying to stay in space as often as possible. A new Resistance was steadily gaining traction and supporters against the First Order now that they had allied themselves with the Republic, but that just meant increased patrols and more regular raids on the smaller planet-bound folk. A nobody in space can be ignored. A nobody on the ground will raise suspicion, always. You can feel bile in the back of your throat as the tingle threatens to grow into an ache. The reassuring press against the back of your skull almost feels as if it is trying to push the pain out.

"Did you hear me?"

A stormtrooper is standing over you. His blaster is clutched in his hands. His posture is tense. "H-huh?" You mumble.

"I said," the stormtrooper growls. "State your name and show your credentials.

Fear claws at your throat at the same time something territorial makes you want to sneer. But your sensitivity did not buy you free combat training, nor did your credits buy you the proper identification for this planet.

Your hesitance must show on your face, because you hear a distinct click and hiss of a blaster safety being taken off. The pain is coming hard and fast this time. At this point, it is a race of time between who will kill you first.

"This is your last chance, you filthy pile of—"

"'Scuse me," a new voice cuts in. "Is my daughter giving you any trouble?"

The reassuring press recoils at the voice. You are left suddenly feeling more alone than before, even as an older gentleman shifts into view above you, carefully easing himself into the space between you and the stormtrooper.

The trooper sounds dubious. "Your daughter." It's not a question.

"We're here on holiday," your rescuer explains, far too casual for the conversation. "Thought we might see the town before I have to send her back to her mother. You know how it is. Messy reunions, am I right?" The man continues to prattle on about useless facts and false relationship drama while you clutch your head and try not to melt into your seat. Eventually, the stormtrooper finally gets fed up and moves along. The man slides into the bench opposite you and keeps up a fake smile until the stormtrooper moves their attention to the other patrons of the bar.

You slump forward immediately. The pain is howling, but you manage to grit out a grateful "Thank you," despite it.

Without his smile, the man looks considerably older. "Bad time for a migraine, kid," he grunts. You purse your lips, extremely tempted to snark back at him that your headaches are divine intervention, but that would be downright suicidal with a stormtrooper still standing less than ten feet away from you. Instead, you plaster another fake smile on your face.

"I know, Dad. "

Despite the lie being his, the man flinches. You ignore his reaction and try to bend forward around the table in a way that will allow you to press the cold glass against your forehead without picking it up. This is not at all how you had imagined this day would go.

The stormtroopers leave the two of you relatively alone after that, going through the rest of their inspection without incident. The mole-faced man, who you assume to be the owner, looks so relieved when they leave that you suspect he is trying not to cry.

When the coast is finally clear, you feel the man's eyes on you and you decide it is probably time to lift your head. The cold glass wasn't really helping, anyway. He's giving you a rather calculating look for a man so scruffy, running his knuckles against the stubble along his jaw as he watches you. His blue eyes narrow for a moment, and you wait as patiently as you can until he speaks.

"You don't look like Resistance." It's a statement, something close to suspicion in his eyes.

"Because I'm not," the Resistance is the last thing you want to be mixed up in. "I'm just here to find another job."

He raises his eyebrow and crosses his arms on the tabletop. "What kind of jobs are you looking for?"

You shrug. The pain is receding, but you wish you could pinpoint the source of your growing unease. Perhaps it's just leftover anxiety from such a close call? You try to shake it. It doesn't feel like the normal warning you usually get. "Anything that gets me off planet."

"This planet?"

"Any planet."

The man strokes his stubble again, then flags down your waitress. She looks less enthused to approach your table than before, but the man gives her a charming smile that has her quickly brightening. "Bring me a shot or two of whatever you recommend," he requests before turning back to you. "I think you and I have a lot to talk about."

One half portion. Lights and mechanical hum. Blinding sun and blistering heat. I feel you. I feel you. Where are you. Come back. Show me again. Don't leave me. Don't.

The waitress returns with a tray of two shot glasses and you knock back the first one without blinking. You set it back on her tray, and give the man a leveled look.

"I think we do, too."