That evening, Kylo watched as Rey started digging through their closet. He knew she hadn't fully unpacked all the stuff that had been in her bag when she'd arrived. She'd told them there were only some unimportant, miscellaneous items left before tossing the bag in a far corner of the closet. Apparently, now, she needed one of those items, if her searching was any indication.
"What are you looking for?" he asked, trying hard not to stare at her butt.
"Something for the research," her muffled answer came.
"For the research?" Kylo echoed, dumbfounded.
More than a bit curious now, Kylo raised an eyebrow when Rey let out a triumphant little 'Ha!'. An arm emerged and she dropped something on the floor behind her before reaching inside again and, finally, fully appearing with more in her hands. Kylo thought they looked like a mismatched set of old, yellowed books.
Realisation dawning, he looked at the yellowed pages more closely.
"You brought the old Jedi texts?" he finally exclaimed.
"I could hardly leave them at the Resistance," Rey simply answered, sitting down where she stood and starting to thumb through one of the volumes.
"And you left them in the closet? In your bag?" He stared at her. "You called them 'unimportant, miscellaneous items'," he added, aghast.
"It's not like they were of much use up until now," Rey said. "It's either stuff you already know and know better, completely inane rules better not learned, or languages I can't read. I thought there might be something about healing in here though. Something I wouldn't have paid attention to when I just left Luke or was trying to fix the saber."
"Unimportant," Kylo said again.
On a rational level, he understood Rey's reasoning, but Luke had practically worshipped those books and had instilled that same sense of reverie in all his padawans, Kylo included. To hear Rey talk so casually about those books truly gave him pause.
Rey looked up at him. "They obviously were important at one time," she said. "But all the Jedi are gone. There's nobody left to decide these books' worth but us. Do you truly think they're worth something?"
Kylo took a moment to think about her question. Apart from his trained respect towards the books, what did he think about them?
"They're part of our history," he eventually, haltingly said. "No matter their use, they should be cherished purely for the history they hold."
"Where I come from," Rey answered, slightly teasing. "History got disassembled and sold."
Kylo chuckled. "Yes, well," he agreed before turning serious again. "They're also the only textbooks concerning training in the Force. At least, as far as I know."
"Huh," Rey said at that, looking down at the book in her hands and blinking. "That's...not good?"
"What do you mean, 'not good'?"
Rey looked up at him again. "There should be better ones than these, no?" she more stated than asked. "Should we have books about the Force for the trainees and the Knights to learn from? Should we write them?"
"Uhm," Kylo unintelligently answered.
"But if there are no textbooks," Rey continued. "What are we going to research from?"
"Stories," Kylo answered, glad he didn't have to answer her first series of questions. It was something worth thinking about though. "There are plenty of stories and myths archived about the Jedi of old and what they could and couldn't do. The stories simply don't tell you how to do them."
"How very convenient," Rey said in a dry and sarcastic manner she could only have picked up from Dot.
Kylo snorted a laugh. "Toss me one of them," he said. "One with a language you can't read. I might have more luck. Luke tried to teach us the texts he managed to translate with the original language on display as well. He probably hoped one of us would magically pick up on the language and translate the rest of it for him."
There was a slight trace of bitterness in his voice, but he'd mostly meant it in jest. Rey quite literally tossed him one of the books in answer. They spent the rest of the evening in relative silence, trying to find a trace of which effect the Force would have on the remnants of a chip that the writers of the books they were reading couldn't even imagine the existence of.
The days continued at a slow, but steady pace. Rey exchanged her studies of First Order politics and procedures for read-throughs of stories about Jedi masters of bygone days. She also freely laughed and sometimes even mocked them when she came by a story she found particularly comical or idiotic.
"Were they not taught to think for themselves?" she would comment. Or "This one clearly never stepped a foot outside his academy before they sent him on this mission". And "I can't believe they tried this. So ridiculous it's absolutely genius".
There were also times when she commended them for their quick thinking and tactics. Sometimes she got so engrossed in a story she 'ooh'-ed and 'ah'-ed, which Kylo found utterly adorable. He didn't mention it to her, afraid she would become self-conscious and stop.
Halfway through the morning, she would invariably leave to check up on the research team and, more specifically, Juan. They seemed to get along swimmingly, from what Kylo heard from Rey. The student took time to explain the intricacies of his work to Rey. He seemed to get along quite well with the other members of the team as well, but Rey still worried for him.
She was immensely amused with what Juan told her about the speculations within the team of her real identity. They'd all figured out she wasn't who she claimed to be, given that she lacked some basic skills and knowledge that anyone having gone through First Order technical training would know. The story also didn't match up to her apparent age, although none of them had been daring enough to ask her how old she actually was.
"Ben, they figured it out," she all but yelled at him through their bond one morning, startling Kylo badly.
"Figured out what, exactly?" he asked after having reassured Derek nothing was the matter.
"How to implement Juan's idea into the helmet to separate the energy field from the electronics."
Kylo turned to Derek. "Is there anything left that can't wait until tomorrow?" he asked. "It would seem the research team has made a breakthrough."
Derek sighed and sifted through the documents on his tablet before shaking his head. "There's nothing urgent, sir," he said.
"Great," he said, standing, then, "I'm on my way."
"You are?"
"You made me curious."
"What about Derek?"
"He heaved a big sigh."
Rey giggled over their bond. Smiling in shared mirth, Kylo strode through both buildings until he reached the researchers' section. The Guards at the entrance — one to make sure nobody without authorization got in but, mostly, so none of the researchers got out, and the other being the one assigned to Rey that day — nodded at him as he passed. Phasma followed him to the lab's door.
"Supreme Leader," the research team leader said upon noticing his arrival. "What a pleasant surprise, and right on time too. I believe we have just made a big step that will move this project forward."
"Fortunate indeed," Kylo dryly answered.
He looked through the room. Most researchers looked smug, a touch of surprise present in some of their expressions. Juan, however, was looking between him and Rey with a look of suspicion.
"What did you tell this Juan of yours?" Kylo asked.
Rey blinked up at him, then quickly looked away again, pretending to be a subordinate like all the others. She then looked up at Juan. Their eyes clearly met and when Juan raised an eyebrow, she gave him an inquiring smile.
"He's smart, isn't he?" she commented.
"He suspects something is going on between us."
"That's a problem?"
"It could be if he gets the wrong idea."
At that, Rey frowned. "Wrong idea?"
Kylo gave her the mental equivalent of a look. It took Rey only a moment.
"Oh," she said. "That's… Let's wait and see if he talks to me, alright? I can't believe he would think that."
He wanted to say more but was pulled into an explanation by the team leader. They had a small setup to test the shielding of the electronics and Kylo gazed at it as they demonstrated. The explanation was pompous and filled with self-gratulations, barely any mention being made of how critical Juan's idea was to the project.
"How do you survive this lot?" he asked Rey.
"With a lot of eye rolling," she merrily answered.
Kylo bit the inside of his cheek to prevent from laughing. He had to admit though that the result of the researchers' work was quite impressive.
"If I understand correctly," Kylo said, turning to Juan, "your work was critical to get to this point?"
"Sir," Juan said. "The basic idea of separating the fields is indeed mine. It was refined upon with my colleagues' input, however."
"I see why he gets along with the rest of them," Kylo said to Rey as he nodded at Juan. "Good thing Miss Rey found you at the Academy then," he added.
"Supreme Leader," Rey said, accepting his words with an incline of her head.
"Really?" she grouched at him. "I can't even be mad because Juan does deserve the praise."
Their eyes crossed and Kylo had to suppress the urge to grin at her.
"How long before we can test this with a fully operational helmet?" he asked the team leader.
That caused the man to launch into an unnecessary explanation about energy consumption and ratios between surface and field strength. There was an added note about how it might affect the sight of whoever was wearing the helmet that actually interested Kylo more than everything that had been said before it.
Eventually, he got a tentative timing of two weeks if all went especially well, and a month and a half if they couldn't solve the issues they could see arising or if other, unforeseen issues would make themselves known.
Kylo merely hummed his understanding. Habit had him tempted to ask if there was anything else he needed to know but he was loath to get dragged into yet another, unnecessary and uppish explanation.
"Keep up the work," he said. "Miss Rey, if you would follow me out."
"Yes, sir," she said. Then, once they were outside. "I thought you wanted to prevent gossip about us, not incite it."
"Me commandeering you around will strengthen the idea that you're my subordinate," he answered. "And it's almost lunch."
Rey laughed. "What's lunch got to do with it?"
Kylo stopped walking and threw a look at Phasma who, luckily without further comment, continued on. They were still in the researchers' section and thus completely alone once Phasma had left.
Rey was looking at him with a confused frown. Kylo's mouth twitched up in a slightly threatening grin as he stepped forward and backed Rey towards the wall. He leaned in closer.
"Nothing," he admitted in a low tone, "other than that it means we have some time."
He chuckled as Rey shivered at his words. He then grabbed her around the waist, pulled her close, and made good use of those won minutes.
By the time the three week deadline Kylo had given for a reevaluation of Sahrsa's state arrived, Rey had read her fair share of stories and Kylo had picked up a few as well. They'd compared notes—mostly Rey telling him her findings—and debated some ideas, but all in all they'd found very little that was of help.
There were a few stories that talked of healing abilities, but they were all second or even third party retellings, or even mere hearsay. Not one of them was written by the Jedi who had actually performed the healing. It was beyond frustrating to have found so little information despite all the time they'd put in.
All-in-all, they had barely anything new to tell the Knights about the Force's possibilities. They had a theory based upon feeling and other theories. It was very little to go on and Kylo couldn't blame the Knights if they were wary of the option.
When the deadline arrived, Kylo and Rey convened with the Knights in the late afternoon. Sahrsa was training on her own, under Flock's watchful eye. The droid had proven to be invaluable in the past weeks.
"So," Kylo said. "Is there any improvement in Sahrsa's behaviour?"