A/N - ::frantically Googles "how to make lightsabers"::
-_IV_-
"Ben," he heard her say before he saw her again. There was an instantaneous relief at her resurgent proximity. It was intangible, the relief she brought him, but real. It must have been the force that made it happen. He opened his eyes to look up at her, standing in the entrance to the cave, pushing green garlands of vine aside, the brilliant bloom of yellow-white sunlight behind her, obscuring all but the most prescient details of her face and body into silhouette.
"Yes?" he said, his voice coming out softer than he'd intended. He was caught in the aurora high of feeling complete again with her arrival, and it took him a moment to recover his senses.
She shifted, pulling a knapsack from her back and moving to bring it into the cave.
"I've brought what I have," she said.
He stood.
"Let's do it outside," he said. "There's more light."
In short order, Kylo Ren found himself sitting with Rey on two adjoining sides of a flat boulder with the pieces of a broken lightsaber, various pieces of machinery, and the stolen sacred Jedi texts. How ironic it seemed that he and Rey held everything left of the Jedi among them on this rock. He didn't care for the Jedi. He found their doctrine misguided and extremist, but there was value to be found, if one picked it out from the rest of the mess.
Rey had one of the books open on the rock and was reading from it.
"It says here that I need to somehow attune myself with the… the… kyber crystals?" she said, glancing over the two shards of the broken lightsaber and the broken kyber crystal within it. She appeared completely befuddled by what was before her.
"Let me look," he said, taking both pieces of lightsaber and inspecting the fractures. Interesting. "It's fascinating that we broke it like this. In half."
He glanced up at her and she was watching him, waiting for more.
"Are we equals in the force?" he asked her, feeling guileless and holding the pieces of the lightsaber up as possible evidence.
"Are we?" she asked, not knowing.
He didn't conclude because he couldn't, so he put the pieces down and said, "You will have to activate the crystals towards your own use."
"How do I do that?" she asked.
"There are two ways," he said, shifting his weight on the rock.
She watched him, waiting.
"You can either attune to the crystal like a Jedi," he said, "Or you can bend it to your will."
"Like a Sith," she said, her brow furrowing.
He glanced down at his lightsaber.
"If you do the latter, it will turn red," he said.
"Then that's what you did," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because that's how I use the force," he said.
She glanced away, and he watched her, silently daring her to proclaim his methods 'wrong'. She didn't.
"So, now what?" she asked.
"Choose how you will do it," he said.
"I will attune to it, of course!" she said, as if anything else was madness.
"If that's what you wish," he said, and then he glanced at her staff, an idea forming. "What kind of lightsaber do you want?"
"There are different kinds?" she asked.
"Of course, there are," he said. "Your staff… you're not terrible with it-,"
"Thanks," she said, wry.
"What I mean is," he said, "it seems to be the weapon you're most comfortable with."
"It is," she said, and then: "Do you mean I can have a staff… saber?"
"I wouldn't call it that," he said, "but yes."
A smile crossed her face like a beam of sunlight.
"Really?" she asked.
He wanted to watch her smile a bit longer, but forced himself to reply.
"Hand me your staff," he said.
-_O_-
Some time later, as the sky faded into a rich purpling dusk, Kylo Ren found himself fully engaged in the process of teaching Rey how to build her lightsaber… or staffsaber as she wouldn't stop calling it. It seemed a bastardization of so many things to use that term, but he let it slide. Besides, it was so engaging to show her, and she was a quick study of the technical.
They were finishing the second end, affixing the crystal within a casing where it would be activated by a power grid. Rey was connecting the pieces together under his instruction using a set of small screwdrivers and a soldering kit. She seemed delighted by the process, by learning; she was an eager, quick student. He found himself captivated by teaching her.
"Be careful not to invert the emitter matrix," he said, watching over her shoulder as she soldered a wire.
"Why shouldn't I do that?" she asked, glancing at him.
"Because it would explode," he said, adding: "Violently."
"Noted," she said, huffing a little laugh, and continuing her soldering.
He fell into the act of simply watching her work. For some time she went on without noticing him, so embroiled was she in the process of building her lightsaber, that he was free to observe her however he wished. He noticed the inherent grace of her hands, combined with a certain strength, and the intensity of her focus when she was determined. He allowed himself to fall into simply feeling the push and pull of the force while near her. It was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. His force flowed into her and hers into him. It was a symbiosis. He wondered if she'd noticed it, yet. Had she payed close enough attention to feel it? Did she feel it in the same way?
She glanced up at him and he glanced away at once, thinking perhaps there was too much on his face.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked, picking up her screwdriver to work on a piece.
He glanced over her.
"I have a question," he announced.
"Do you?" she replied, seeming amused, and continuing to fiddle with the end of her lightsaber.
"Yes," he said, though it was difficult for him to articulate it. She seemed to perceive this, and she put her tools down to look at him.
"What is it?" she asked.
"What do you feel when you are near me?" he asked, knowing it was a strange question, knowing it was possibly a ridiculous question, and feeling strangely exposed by the act of asking it.
She gazed at him, perhaps due to considering how to reply, or considering how to put what she felt into words.
"I feel…," she began.
He hung on every word, feeling the force flow between them.
"Powerful," she said, glancing around as if looking for more words. He dared not reply because he wanted more, if she could give it. "And… warm, and… and like I know you."
He waited.
"And as if we could-," she said, but she stopped herself and looked away.
"Could what?" he prompted, hoping.
She shook her head slightly, and he perceived sadness in her.
"Perhaps that's only something Snoke put in my head," she said. "To fool me."
She resumed working on the lightsaber, finishing the panel and locking it into place, and he found himself wanting to touch her again for the first time.
"You must attune yourself to the crystals, now," he said, noticing the gentleness of his voice as an afterthought.
She glanced over at him and gave him a nod.
"How do I?" she asked.
"How do you do anything with the force?" he asked her. "Feel it."
He watched her draw a breath and let it out, steadying herself and closing her eyes for feeling the force and trying to use it in an unfamiliar way, and he allowed her the space to do it, though he couldn't help but feel the force with her. It was all around them, and through them, and between them.
The sun had set, and the shadows had deepened, and as he cast his eyes upward, he saw that a few stars had emerged from the darkening blue, white and shimmering in the atmosphere. A faint breeze rose, rustling the papery leaves of a dangling tree as its branches kissed the still, reflective surface of the pond. He watched a leaf touch the water, and he watched ripples, small, concentric, moving with perfect smoothness out into the body of the pond and then fade and disappear. He felt so acutely aware of everything around him, more than he could ever recall, and then he felt the life of the crystal in Rey's hands.
He shifted his gaze to the crystal, but his focus was on what he was feeling. She was attuning herself to it, he could feel that, but due to his proximity, he was part of it, too. He didn't know how to not be mixed into it, for when they were together they mixed and blended, and he couldn't pull himself away.
"Rey," he said, not wanting to sabotage her attunement efforts.
She didn't open her eyes, but he felt her respond to his anxiety in the force with a certain gentleness, perhaps a comfort, if he could remember what it was to be comforted, and when she reached out and grabbed him by the wrist he almost panicked and drew away. For a split-second he feared her touch would consume him, and then he found he didn't care if he was consumed.
Beneath her perfect hand, everything he felt before magnified by a hundred-fold, and he was lost. He fell, reckless, plummeting into the force between them.
There were three kyber crystals here, with them. Two were in the lightsaber she was making with her staff, from the broken shards of Anakin Skywalker, and one was in his lightsaber. All three responded to them, so great was the surge of the force in their combination. He felt the crystals' life forces, their crystalline sentience, their deep, expansive, hive-like knowledge and wisdom between all the kyberite in the galaxy, and he felt her. Oh, stars, he felt her. This is what he had wanted, craved, needed, without ever knowing what it was he'd wanted, but this was it.
The crystals responded to them, they filled with the force, they absorbed it and reflected it and their respective harmonies fell into place with Rey and Kylo Ren, who were already the same; their frequencies aligned and sang in glorious, glowing force-brilliance.
Kylo heard a desperate gasp, and then realized it had come from him. Rey's hand broke from his wrist and they fell apart, shattered, bewildered, awestruck. He clutched the rock beneath him and struggled to breathe, realizing he was out of breath, that he had been strained, physically overwhelmed by what had just happened. The force still flowed around them, agitated, perhaps even excited, like the frantic pulsing of electrons heated beyond stability. But it was bearable. He could focus, now.
He looked at her. She, like him, had fallen against the rock, and she clutched it with her perfect, perfect hands, hands he wanted to worship and take in his own and kiss a thousand times, yet the threatening power terrified him. She was breathless and gazing at him with a wonder he did not doubt he returned in his own eyes.
Her gaze shifted to the lightsaber staff between them. He watched her hand, her delicate trembling fingers, reach out for it, and take it, and flip the switch.
The sound, familiar, a primal, steady hum that could be both heard and felt. Sudden light lit Rey's face from both sides in the darkening night and he found he couldn't take his eyes from the saber blades, for he'd never seen anything like them, ever, anywhere.
They were white.
"Ben," she began, her voice trembling. He could see she was having the same reaction as him as her eyes stayed on the white blades.
"I don't know," he said, helpless. Concerning the force, they were the most knowledgeable people left in the galaxy, and it was right then that it hit Kylo just how darkly comical that was. They were idiots. They knew nothing.
Something nagged at him.
There had been three crystals.
He grabbed at the saber hilt at his side, pulling it out, almost dropping it in his haste to do so, and he stared at it, almost afraid to know. His thumb lingered over the switch.
"Ben," she said again, and he could hear her breathing mingled with his own.
Click.
The glow of the blade struck him, followed by the crosshilts, then the deep, resounding vibratory hum, and the shock of the color.
Or, rather, the lack of color.
"Ben!" said Rey, her voice trembling.
White… white. It was white. His lightsaber had turned white.
He released it in shock, the blade falling back into itself, extinguishing into darkness and he dropped the hilt and it skittered across the stone and fell on the ground.
He didn't know what to do or what had happened.
"How?" asked Rey.
He stared at the hilt on the ground, barely hearing Rey's question.
She released her lightsaber and they were plunged into twilight. It was then he was able, once again, to focus. To look at her and think critically.
"I think I … might know," he said, and he lunged for the Jedi texts. Pulling one open, he began to flip through it, desperate to find the answer, needing the answer. "What was it… where was it? It was so long ago…"
He took another one, growing frustrated in the darkening night.
"I need light," he said.
She ignited her lightsaber staff and held it aloft, above him, the brilliant glow bringing the pages of Jedi text into sharp relief.
He searched, and searched, both searching the texts and searching his mind for memories. He hated those memories, the ones of being trained as a Jedi. They brought him fear and fury, but they were where the answers lay. Despite his desperation to know, the searching brought him frustration and agitation.
"What are you looking for?" she asked.
"There was a record of a Sith lightsaber crystal being purified from domination," he said. "I could have sworn it was in here, somewhere…"
"Ahsoka Tano?" asked Rey.
Kylo stopped everything he was doing and looked up at her.
"She purified two crystals retrieved from the Sixth Brother's lightsaber," said Rey. "They were healed and turned white."
He was, perhaps, staring at her. Perhaps dumbfounded. Possibly even open-mouthed.
"I have had the books for months, you know," she said.
"You've studied them all?" he asked.
"Of course I have!" she said, as if that was a ridiculous question. She then pointed at one and said, "It's in that one."
He grabbed it unquestioningly and opened it, finding the passage, near the end.
"She began the process of building a new pair of lightsabers, and heard the kyber crystals in the Brother's double-bladed lightsaber sing to her. During her battle with the Brother, Tano used the force to pull the crystals from his lightsaber, defeating him. She purified the crystals and they turned from red to white," read Kylo.
The implications of that sunk in.
He stood at once to face Rey.
"You did this!" he accused, pointing at his lightsaber hilt.
"I most certainly did not!" she retorted.
He reached over and grabbed the hilt and turned it on, white, brilliant, with its grinding hum.
"Explain this, then," he demanded, pointing at the blade with a sharp finger.
She seemed at a loss for words, but then she gathered herself and pointed out her white-bladed staff and said, "If I did that, then you did this."
"Impossible!" he replied.
"It is one hundred percent possible!" she rejoined, and then, leaning in, she said more confidentially: "Think about it, Ben… it takes both the dark and the light to make a white light saber. You've corrupted mine and I've purified yours."
In the time it took her to tell him that, he knew she was right. He'd already figured it out, though he didn't like it. He wasn't comfortable with it.
He released his lightsaber blade and shoved the hilt in his belt.
He wasn't sure how he felt about this whole, new world.
"Well," he said. "Now you have a lightsaber."
She released her lightsaber staff and darkling twilight surrounded them again.
There was a tense moment of silence between them.
"Thank you," she said.
"I'm going back to my ship," he said.
"Wait," she said.
"No," he said. He was still stinging from the tainting of his lightsaber. He didn't like it.
As he moved to leave, she grabbed his arm with her hand and he felt a wave of power rush through him, threatening him and his set ways. He jerked his arm away from her.
"Don't," he clipped, "touch me."
He needed to think. Away from her. Especially away from her touch.
"What are you going to do about the war?" she asked, perhaps pleading.
"What do you mean what am I going to do about it?" he asked.
"Are you going to stop it?" she asked.
"Why would I do that?" he asked.
"Because," she began, then glanced around, as if searching for words, "because of this."
"No," he said.
"Ben," she said. "There is light in you, I know it. I've felt it."
"And there is dark in you," he said, knowing.
She fell silent.
He looked over her still form, blue and grey in the shadows, but lit along the edges by a sliver of moonlight. He found himself wishing things could be different, somehow, but the First Order was inevitably going to find the Resistance and there was inevitably going to be a war. It didn't concern him, and it shouldn't concern her.
"Join me, Rey," he said.
"You still don't understand, do you?" she asked him, and he noticed her voice shook.
Frustration rose again within him, familiar, agonizing.
"It is you who does not understand!" he spat, and he turned away.
As he stalked back towards his ship, he rediscovered the feeling of being imbalanced, and he hated it.
-_IV_-