Notes: Not sure what inspired this, precisely, apart from my need for more interaction between them in the aftermath of the last movie and thinking of what could happen next. I started with just training in mind and it somehow turned into a concept that got a life of its own.
Feedback is always welcome!
Rey twisted out of the way in the last possible moment to avoid the hit aimed for her right side and grinned despite herself at the frustrated huff she got in response. It was one of her main advantages in hand-to-hand, how quick she was, and she intended to use it for as long as she could. In the recent weeks, this had easily become the best part of her day: it helped her focus and it made her feel useful and, while she wasn't ready to admit it to anyone, being here was a refreshing change from the constant nagging at the back of her head that the force bond helpfully provided otherwise.
Still, she had to admit that it was tiring. She hadn't had a break for a while and her every movement felt heavier than before; her lungs burning as much as her thighs did now. As she paused for a second in an attempt to catch her breath, Rey's world shifted under her feet as she found herself slammed against the floor and although she'd expected it, it still made her angrier than she thought she had the energy to be.
It wasn't even remotely as painful as Rey had imagined. Someone had softened the blow, had got the Force to keep her body away from the hard ground until she was close enough to it to land safely and while she would have liked to think that it was her doing, she wasn't sure that her instincts surrounding it were quite as well-developed yet. The alternative was infinitely more puzzling, but Rey didn't have the time to consider it; her more pressing problem being the hands pinning her wrists to her sides.
"You need to stop depending on your body so much." In the ringing silence of the room, Ben's voice felt too loud in the space between them. It wasn't enough to shift Rey's concentration, but it was a close thing, given their proximity. "Rely on your surroundings to bend to you instead."
"There's nothing around me." Rey hated how breathless she was and the fact that he was in a similar state didn't do much to comfort her. They had been at it for almost an hour already, or at least that's what it felt like, and exhaustion was starting to raise its head. "It's just four blank walls." And you. She couldn't make him do anything against his will, though; if that had been the case, they would have never ended up in this situation.
It was all the result of a highly improbable coincidence – the fight that had incapacitated him enough for the Resistance to bring him in and her realising that he was the only person she knew of in the galaxy who actually had the knowledge she needed – and she'd managed to convince everyone who mattered to permit her to come in and out of his cell whenever she wanted. Permission and approval weren't quite the same thing, she'd discovered since then – the fact that she was allowed to be here hadn't spared her the mix of confusion and suspicion that people regarded her with – but it was something. It was all she had.
It was a bleak prospect. Luke had been a reluctant teacher, but he'd been the one to tell her how to reach to the power that had only felt like a distant inkling before and she missed him – him and his curt explanations of the Jedi's past mistakes and everything he'd wanted to do differently. She missed Ahch-To and how alive every bit of it was; how different it had all been from here, where all she had was a carefully isolated room and the man staring down at her with the same restless irritation that had plagued him ever since he'd been captured.
"Four blank walls aren't nothing," he said now, making no move to get up. The only reason why he'd agreed to cooperate was because he hadn't been given absolutely anything else to do, Rey suspected, and while everything he had taught her so far had been very useful, he also kept making a point of being as difficult as possible. "If an empty room is all the material you have, work with that."
"Not possible in this empty room," Rey snapped, still trying to wrestle her hands free. "Get off me."
Directly telling him to back off was, surprisingly, the easiest way to get Ben to do anything and he was gone before she could blink, going back to his starting position at the foot of his bed where she'd found her when she'd decided to visit him today. It was difficult to predict what made him react like he did; she was often curt with him and sometimes the strangest things made her feel like she'd pushed too far. It was in moments such as this one – when he recoiled into his own space, standing out like an ink stain against the pristine white surroundings of his cell – that she usually tried to reach out again. He was so tragically out of place that she couldn't help herself.
"You need to practice your forms more if you want to get any further," he said once Rey tentatively followed his example in an effort to make it clear that she didn't intend on leaving yet. "There's more for you to know about the Force, but you need to be better acquainted with a lightsaber first."
Rey narrowed her eyes. There was no surveillance here – his cell was too well built for any technology to be able to permanently endure the multiple external blocks put around it – and she had no idea what Ben did with his time when she wasn't with him, but the hints were all around her. There were enough marks and scratches on the walls to suggest that he'd tried to fight his way out with nothing but his bare arms, the Force, and – if she took the particularly nasty dent right above his bed into account – the plates that his food arrived in. Getting a lightsaber anywhere near him wouldn't just be ill-advised; it would be a catastrophe and Rey was a little offended that he'd even tried.
"I'm only saying what you already know," Ben continued as if he'd sensed her doubt. Knowing him, he likely had and Rey sought his presence out too, as curious as she was eager to retaliate. It didn't help much – all she encountered was even more of the chaos that she was dealing with on her own – and she gave up soon enough. "No one else here can show you what to do. It's a weapon unlike any other. Did you manage to repair the one Skywalker gave you?"
Now there was something shining through; something hungry and reluctant at the same time. He wanted that lightsaber more than he'd ever wanted anything else in his life, but it didn't make him want to forget who it had belonged to last any less. Rey could feel the anger that she'd kept to a manageable level so far rising up again.
"There are instructions in some of the books I found."
"So you haven't." He sat up straighter. "Give it to me. I can—"
"You can't." This was it, she realised; this was what bothered her the most. Even here, now, he refused to give up, pushing for what he thought he was entitled to. "No one is bringing a weapon into this room while you're still in it." The Supreme Leader was being treated more like a rabid animal than a political hostage and even if she'd tried to, Rey wouldn't have been able to convince anyone that he could be even remotely helpful. The notion alone seemed ridiculous even to her now.
"You could train with mine, then." It was as if she hadn't spoken at all. "You would have to bring a weapon here, but I won't get to touch it."
Was he really desperate enough for entertainment to watch her wield his weapon right in front of him? Rey wouldn't have believed it before, but by now she'd spent enough time with Ben to not doubt it for a second. Anything at all was better than having nothing to do in his book. "No."
"You still have it, don't you?" There was something akin to panic in his eyes now. "If you've thrown it into the armoury with the rest of the garbage on this ship—"
"It's locked in a safe." Rey didn't have enough patience left to listen to the rest of whatever threat he'd come up with now. "The only people who know where it is are me and your mother."
"And no one else has touched it?"
Why was this all he cared about? If he assumed that he'd be saved at one point, surely an attack of the ship from the First Order would ensure that he'd get his lightsaber back too. Rey carefully dipped into the unspoken space between them and opened herself to his mind and although it was still far too loud (almost as loud as Ben himself, overwhelming and demanding attention so that whoever was in front of him would be too distracted to try to look past his physical presence) it was far too easy to get to the heart of his thoughts.
No one's coming. Try as he might to hide it, everything else in his head was fuelled by this one thought, festering and staining every other aspect of him. There was a flurry of faces and names passing through that Rey couldn't recognise, but the big picture was clear: he was almost certain that someone else had already taken over. He would rather die than admit it – his position was his only bargaining chip, after all – but he was on his own now and the relief and terror fighting for space were all the prompt Rey needed to pull away.
It was too much. It – he – had always been too much and as they had gradually got used to each other's constant presence over time, Rey had thought that she could handle it, but she had been nowhere near prepared for the sheer dread that overshadowed all rational thought.
So he'd focused on his lightsaber instead. Rey wished more than anything to be unable to understand, but this was altogether too familiar – the dedication to this one thing that could make everything better with its presence. He'd asked about it every time he got the chance and at first she'd assumed that it was just one more way he'd figured out he could rile her up – but much to her misfortune, this made much more sense.
It also made it significantly more difficult to deny him.
"Why would anyone want to?" It wasn't a challenge to sound sincere. Leia herself had been tentative with the lightsaber when she'd carried it away after they'd disarmed him and everyone apart from the two of them had just tried to stay out of the way. Rey remembered the time she'd held it back in the throne room; the barely contained power crackling through the weapon as it struggled to stay in one piece. She couldn't imagine using it on a daily basis without losing her mind. "It's unstable and extremely powerful and no one knows how to deal with it. If it ends up in the hands of someone who doesn't have the strength necessary, it could have disastrous consequences."
"It's still all you've got."
For better or for worse, it was. Rey sighed and leant back against the wall, trying to make herself even slightly more comfortable on the small cot he'd been provided with. "I can learn how to handle it."
Silence. After the countless hours of near constant verbal and psychic waterfall of bargaining attempts and threats, Ben was completely, mercifully quiet as he ran what she'd said through his mind. If he'd picked up on everything she'd kept to herself, he didn't let it show. "It could take a while."
"I didn't expect any of this to be simple."
Any trace of the maelstrom she'd felt just minutes ago was suddenly gone and Rey would have almost assumed that she'd imagined it all if it hadn't been for the undercurrent of anxiety under the interest she'd piqued. She'd got used to this too, gradually: his feelings were as imposing as every other part of him tended to be and she often couldn't determine which one he'd picked to drive him at any particular moment. "I can show you everything you need," he said, already getting to his feet and holding his hand out as if he expected her to just hand it to him. "It won't be easy, but if you pay attention, I can even teach you how to repair—"
"I'm the only one allowed to touch a weapon, remember?"
"Of course." It was only at the next impatient gesture that Rey realised that he expected her to take his hand and she let him pull her up to her feet again. "But you still need bring it here."
It was easier to touch him now that he wasn't so weighed down by the despair that had consumed him previously and it was easier to do this now that she had tried to help for some reason he couldn't figure out yet, and. She took a figurative step back from his mind again. It was an acceptable enough method of communication if they couldn't bring themselves to talk, but it was too distracting from what she was about to do and this time, Rey wanted to make sure that they were on the same page. It would be far easier now that they could understand each other much more clearly than they had before. She let go and headed for the exit.
"I will."