Note: Well hello everyone, new and old alike! :) I hope you enjoyed The Last Jedi. This won't really contain a ton of spoilers, but it will carry the risk for them. So be warned! This is unbeta'd, and I haven't slept since I saw the movie opening night with my family. I just really needed to write something and this is what came to me as I followed my brain along.Hope you enjoy my sort of weird re-entry back into the fandom. Come say hi to me on tumblr under the handle juuls! Love you all! xoxo
"We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep."
― William James
"What do you see when you close your eyes?"
The voice intruded but she pushed it back, further than the last time. Once more, silence reigned except for the steady beating of her heart in her ears, and she focused completely on the blue light shining before her.
It was small, but it was steady, and it was holding true for the first time in… she didn't know. She didn't know how long she'd been doing this, how long she'd been sitting here, in the cold, in the dark, alone, so alo—
The light flickered, and Rey, panicked, jerked her thoughts back to the task at hand, breathing in deeply, slowly, careful not to let herself panic further and lose control. It was all about control, but not about maintaining an iron grip on it. It was about… balance.
She let her breath out to a count of ten, and then breathed in to a count of five, slowly cycling, letting her mind enter that in-between that wasn't neutral, that wasn't a lack, and instead it was a place where one could experience both sides, where one could be in the middle, and feel the galaxy in flux as it wove around you, as it breathed and lived…
"If you had accepted my offer, I could have helped you."
Her concentration wavered, just a hair, just enough for the energy in the room to go from a steady thrum, from balance, from the well-cultivated path she had tended for the crystals for the past too long—she was so tired, why did this have to take so long, why her, why was he antagonizing her so, why, why—
Movement drew her gaze, and cloth rustled, pulling her from the tumultuous thoughts that had been pulling her ever downward. Before she could react, he was seated on the floor in front of her, one hand reaching, reaching…
Contact.
It was like a spark. A sizzle. Something alive and growing ever outwards within her from the point of contact, like electricity in a live wire in one of the ships she'd been tasked with maintaining. It was electrifying and invigorating and it nearly made her lose all control over the kyber crystals floating before her.
But at the last moment, she pulled her hand back, away from his, and drew both of her hands in tighter around the three blue crystals spinning lazy circles above her lap.
She barely even registered the fact that she'd closed her eyes, except for when she opened them again, and realized that hours had passed, the sun had set, and the man who was supposed to be her greatest enemy was still in the now-dimly lit room with her.
Close enough to touch, as they'd discovered.
Close enough to kill, if he… if they will.
She chose to ignore that thought for the moment, letting it drift away in the smoothness of her mind. An easy thing to do, in this state that Leia had taught her.
But it was also easy because he and she had spent too many hours of involuntary time together, as well as some… less so, of late, and they seemed to be… perhaps peace was not the word. No, far from it—
—the large crystal from Anakin's old lightsaber suddenly let loose a loud crack and a dozen sparks sprung out, some flying straight for Rey's unprotected eyes. Rey reached out with the Force, easily dividing her attention between the three kyber crystals, the meditation, and the easy task of stopping the sparks from the unstable crystal matrix from reaching her eyes.
Rey was met halfway there by Ben.
Their Force signatures met and mingled, caressing against themselves as much as two energy signatures could when they were already intertwined in a Bond that was unbreakable except by death. They mingled as if they weren't already woven together, here in this room, there, wherever Ben was, pulling them together across time and space.
Rey shuddered before she could suppress it, and then thanked the Force, the stars, the Maker, God, the gods, whoever the hell was out there listening—she thanked all of them that Ben found it nearly impossible to read her feelings across this forsaken bond that they shared, or she would have been doomed. He would have tracked her ceaselessly, mercilessly, without regard for anyone who stood between him and his prey:
Her. Rey.
As it were, he played a gentle game of cat and mouse as he regrouped, content to let her lie where she was for now, confident in his abilities to retrieve her when he so willed, and she in turn let him play that game, let him play to his arrogance, confident in her and her allies' abilities to stay a step beyond the capacities of the First Order and its new, untested, and volatile Supreme Leader.
She had never once imagined that the small bud of empathy she had felt and acted upon at the beginning of her journey would grow into this snarl of blossoms and thorns and vines, simultaneously choking her and making her marvel at the beauty of it all.
If he had known that…
"You shouldn't be here," Rey said, as much to distract herself as to chastise him. She pulled herself away from him, and directed her mind to the pile of small parts to her right. With as soft a sound as small metal pieces could make as they pulled away from each other, they began to float apart in the air.
The time she had spent lost in the crystals had clearly been what was needed for them—and her—to finish preparing for the last step of the creation of her new lightsaber. Finally. It had been long months without it, nearly a year, but the time had never been right. Not until just then. It had simply suddenly been time.
His unusual lack of response was what drew her head up to look at him as the parts began to slowly rotate around her slightly outstretched hands, which were very loosely wrapped around the crystals. He wasn't looking at her face, but at her hands, at the crystals underneath them more specifically, but his eyes were also tracking the slight movements of the mechanical pieces as they bumped against her hands, trying to access the pieces of which she was holding hostage with her fingers.
The larger crystal sparked once more, but he twitched his fingers almost within a microsecond, almost before it happened, and killed the sparks before they could even fly.
Rey's containment of the crystal would have held, but the way she could see time play out in that moment… Ben's action reached it first.
He looked… intrigued.
She could only imagine what her own features looked like.
Rey shook her head almost imperceptibly and prodded, once again, "Why are you here?"
"I have every right to be here," Ben said, almost offhandedly.
Oh really.
But Rey forced herself not to react immediately, and she let one fist slowly uncurl. Pieces of metal and glass began to fly in quicker than she could remove her fingers. She smiled, just a little. It was almost as if the bits and bobs had minds of their own, and were happy to be finding their home together with the crystals they would be wrapped nice and snugly around, at last.
Finally, she looked up, and her originally and bitingly intended, 'Oh do you now?' was changed to a far, far softer than intended, "What right is that?" when she saw how… open, how nostalgic, how… fond he looked as he watched her hands weave the pieces of her lightsaber together with increasing fluidity. It was as if he were remembering when he was crafting his—whether his first or his second—and wishing he could do it all over again.
It looked as if he would rather do nothing else than this.
Rey didn't know what to do with that.
Not now.
Perhaps… perhaps later.
"This one." But his lips didn't move; she was watching him avidly in that moment, and she would know if they had.
There were new things they were discovering about the bond, and doing with the bond, and learning to control with the bond every day. This was just another.
But she no longer had the ability to think, only react—or rather not—as Ben reached forward, reached through her hand, and touched the tips of his fingers to the smaller stone in her still-enclosed palm. Rey could only stare in horror as the pieces of metal and glass still floating through the air passed through his hand, could only stare in horror—and admitted partial fascination—at the point of contact where his hand passed through her flesh, and then she slowly turned her hand palm up… and opened it.
Ben did the same with his other hand.
In his hand rested a man's ring, one she could recognize immediately.
There was no doubt in her mind.
It was a match.
Or rather, the stone within it was a match to the two stones hovering over her palm.
"I heard," Ben whispered, and the worst thing was that he sounded completely broken in that moment, but hidden behind that terrible wall, that one he always threw up at the very last moment.
That, maybe more than anything, even more than the grief, cutting anew, hurt the most.
Rey choked on a sob, and the only thing keeping her lightsaber together was the fact that it was almost complete—and Ben had done something; he'd done something she didn't understand, or didn't want to understand, and it had to do with the two, no three, stones.
She could feel something tugging, more than ever before, tugging, cutting through the grief that was even now abating.
Both equally dry-eyed, but not unaffected—no, she could never say that about Ben, not now that she knew him—they watched as the remaining mechanical pieces started to weave themselves together around one of the small stones while the other found its resting place on the pommel.
Soon, it was over, and the energy in the room abated.
Soon there was nothing left in the room but the two of them, the faint light of the fireplace, and the two lightsabers warm in her hands, calling to her, singing to her, dancing upon every fiber of her being.
They felt so right.
More right than Anakin's 'saber had felt in its previous form on its own, more right than Ben's quilloned 'saber had in the throne room.
These felt like they were hers straight into the Force and back—and now she understood that as well, and it simply felt so right.
It all felt so right, and that was including Ben at her side.
Rey wished…
She opened her mouth to speak, but he always seemed to know when she was about to say something that would call attention to the difference in their allegiances, when Rey would get bored of the hours of pretending that they were anything more than just Rey and Ben, rather than Rey of Jakku and Kylo Ren.
"Go ahead, try them," he suggested reverently, pocketing his ring as he stood smoothly and stepped away from Rey. He couldn't see the room's dimensions, but he knew that he needed space from her—they had learned early on that they could hurt each other, even if unintentionally, through these… controlled visions.
Rey stood, trying to push away her all-too-familiar disappointment at not being able to open up the dialogue she so desperately wished to with him. Instead, she gave her new weapons their proper due, looking upon them with the same reverence that Ben had in his voice.
Rey just went for it, no waiting. She knew exactly how to hold them in such a way that she would not be encumbered, and that she could activate them with one hand each, letting the very weapons themselves guide her. A smile lit her face as first one, then the other activated, both blades blue. But her main hand, the larger blade, was crackling, fiery, spitting, and seemed to have a mind of its own, and she widened her eyes, feeling it quaking it beneath her hand as she spun it in a few katas, then felt it steadying, as if it were testing her… and finding her worthy.
It was a heady feeling.
And the other was just as powerful in its own way. It was calmer, almost serene, but in a way that was deceptively so. Rey could sense the agility of the blade and she gave it a spin as she struck out with a few short jabs, parries, and spins, tucking the main hand close to the body as she did so.
She got carried away, throwing herself into kata after kata, ones she'd learned, ones she'd cobbled together, and ones she'd made up herself over the long years she'd been alone, so alone.
When she finally opened her eyes, she realized she was alone, that Ben had left. It wasn't unusual, however, so she didn't take it personally. It was just another quirk of who he was, who they were… whatever the hell they were to each other.
Instead Rey sat down before the fireplace and pulled out her polishing kit, and pondered her new weapons.
There lay one, a vestige of Anakin, an almost ironic—now, that is—imitation of Ben's lightsaber with its own cracked kyber crystal, a reminder of the battle where they first fought as allies, and parted again as enemies—or so it seemed.
And there lay the other, a reminder of Leia, and now a tie to Ben, quite literally a stone tied to her, tied to him, between them, even if done so unintentionally—at least on their parts. But Rey had the sneaking suspicion now that Leia had always known, had always seen that this would come. She had known of Rey and her son's connection, and perhaps… perhaps she had known more?
There was often so little that Rey could divine of Leia's decisions during moments like these, but it seemed like something she would have done, something she would have known and planned for. Poe… Poe would know. He had always been close to and had nothing but the utmost care and respect for the general—and her highest levels of confidence of anyone in the fleet, in the Resistance. The two of them together were the closest of them all. He would know, now that Leia was gone.
But these stones… she couldn't stop thinking about them.
There wasn't much she could do at the moment, however, so she followed what had been working for her and the swiftly rebuilding Resistance for the last year and just breathed.