“He’s always here,” Rey cries out, slamming her palm against her own chest as she turns to look at him. “He’ll always be here.”

She isn’t sure why she struggles so much with this. Perhaps it’s just the utter disappointment and revulsion of finding him at the end of a fifteen year search for meaning and purpose. After all that, and she’s a Palpatine. It feels exceedingly cruel, and after a lifetime of cruelties this one is especially hard to come to terms with. She is not only her blood, she is so much more than that, but sometimes she cannot help but to be disgusted. Or terrified.

“I just want to be free of it,” she says raggedly, forcing herself to draw in a breath as she looks up at the throne. “But he’ll never leave me.”