[closed] with the strength of a will and a cause

[secondnature]

CHARACTERS: Keith and Rey
DATE: The day after the wedding.
WARNINGS: Blood and stabbing, likely lots of Star Wars spoilers if you haven't seen The Last Jedi yet.
SUMMARY: Keith's dangerous foray into the Star Wars cast finally comes to a head.

[Gram feels heavy in Keith's hands as he carries it out into the woods. Light filters down through the tree tops, hitting the ground around him, creating a shadow with the sword extending beyond it, unable to hide the weight of the truth it holds. Guilt doesn't keep Keith from this place. Understanding that he might be destroying everything in trying to help doesn't keep him from it, but it sure doesn't help.

Keith sends a message with his coordinates and asks Rey to join him. He doesn't bother to conceal the sword while he waits.

A year ago, he and Loki had an arrangement where Percy would be stabbed with this very sword. It turned out that Percy's truth hadn't mattered to Keith, the same way that Zymandis' founder's truth hadn't. Here, Keith wonders if it's fair to leverage Rey's truth above theirs, but Loki's reminder of how Rey's lies had become her truth echo in his mind.

He worries, but he doesn't leave. Too much has happened since Rey returned with the disappointment of a new person abandoning her in her life. Keith promised to stay with her until they were both ready to go. As it turns out ... something like this seems to be a part of the bargain. He just knows it'll hurt him as much as it hurts her.]

Comments

[secondnature]

[Him. Kylo Ren. He's the part of this puzzle that Keith can't seem to figure out. Somehow he fed into something that Kylo Ren had said. What was it? Did it have to do with why he almost killed Keith? Was it because Keith couldn't be trusted? And if so, did he just prove today that he deserved to almost be killed, if not to Rey then to Kylo Ren?

It's possible. No, it's likely.

He looks back toward her in the periphery. When he speaks, his voice is soft, distant, like he's reluctant to let go but he's also found his resolve for the moment.]

No. Because no matter what I said here, it wasn't the right answer. I believe in you, Rey. I'm not giving up. I mean that. That means I'll wait as long as I have to. [He turns the sword over, finding its hilt from a different angle.

He knows what it feels like to be walked away from, and he feels terrible having to do it. But telling her to believe in herself instead of in him isn't going to help. It's killing him—all of this is killing him.

Which is why it's hard to look away and begin moving forward, keeping her at his back. Keith knows that it'll feel like a good-bye. That she'll tell herself that she's been abandoned. Maybe she'll be right. But right now, walking away feels better than giving her more things to latch on to and twist in her pain.

So forward he goes. That's the only way he can go right now.]

[forcevisions]

[ One more thing Keith's right about, after all. Watching him walk away feels like having her chest split open. She wants to double over, succumb to it, but … she doesn't. She has watched this play out before. The tears come more freely, and she stands there, staring after him.

It's a confusing message. He believes in her, but he doesn't trust her. He's not giving up, but he's walking away. It's like he wants to go through the motions of being her friend without having to stick around for it. Maybe he really had just been trying to cut through the messy part so he could stop having to deal with it.

Her instinct is to go to Finn, but—

But Keith had told Poe, so Finn was gone. Who else did she have left? ]