Minutes passed by quicker than he had ever remembered them doing so, as though time knew they were only days away from the end of their lives.
Every moment they could spare, Kylo and Rey spent together. It was difficult at times, as they were both stretched so thin between what was required of them. Kylo had no choice but to delegate tasks to General Hux; he walked a fine line between having sufficient time to plan with Rey, and giving Hux more power over the fleet. It was exhausting, and he knew Rey felt the same way.
The Rebels needed information to survive another onslaught from the First Fleet, and despite a small part of him which was reluctant to give so freely what the First Order held close to their chest, Kylo knew his allegiance didn't lie with them anymore.
The truth of this was daunting, and he desired more time to process the shift in his consciousness.
Time which they did not have, he reminded himself.
Kylo gave the information to Rey after some deliberation. Primarily, his internal debate on how much he should give always fell back to the same image crossing his mind; Rey's lifeless body, discarded on the ground by the Knights of Ren, just as the young boy at the Jedi Temple had been.
He wouldn't allow it to occur.
With the information regarding the First Fleet and the Knights of Ren's arrival in the Outer Rim, the Rebels had been working through the nights to prepare and plan their defensive and offensive strategies. Rey had been passing the information onto her allies under the guise of her connection with the force, but hadn't divulged the entire truth behind her knowledge.
Kylo didn't need to ask why she hadn't told her friends about the bond that had formed between them; he was sure he didn't want to hear or feel the answer regardless.
Rey otherwise took a step back, as Kylo had, in order to prepare. Most of their time would be consumed with attuning their kyber, and it was there that they began.
Kylo knew that their sabers could technically and theoretically function with the raw kyber; however, he also knew it would function with a fraction of the power and synchrony of an attuned crystal.
Luke's words surfaced in his mind, a memory that ached now, rather than burned.
"An attuned saber is an extension of a Jedi's own arm." Ben saw Elira's eyes flicker to Luke's mechanical hand, and he wasn't the only one who noticed.
"Even if that arm is no longer made of flesh," Luke quipped, green eyes betraying the humour that one may have missed within his words.
"It responds and reacts to the one it calls to in such a way that is like no other; you can wield an attuned saber of another, but it will not centre you, or ground you in a way that your own saber will. The kyber is as part of the force as you and I." He had looked at Ben then, a soft smile pulling at the corner of his lips.
Kylo had then learned the way of the Sith, and how their dominance and power was exerted over a Jedi's attuned kyber, until it was stained the colour of freshly spilled blood.
It was like inflicting a second death upon the master of that crystal.
With the memories of how sabers were created at the forefront of his mind, Kylo was also achingly aware of how long the process typically took. Most had taken months, some had taken weeks, but no one had ever attuned a crystal in the space of several days.
Without the time they needed, their attempts were most likely in vain.
Regardless, they persevered. They allowed whatever time they could to meditate solely and directly on their crystals, channelling their energy into the material with all they could muster. The kyber did not stray far from their palms as a result; they were only placed to the side when they were instead focused on their sheaths.
"Ow!" Rey cried, zapping herself with the wiring in the half built casing. She dropped everything she had held onto the bench below, and shook her fingers quickly through the air to relieve the burn, frowning at the offending item.
"I told you those wires needed to be attached to opposite circuits." Rey threw him a dark look, which elicited a slight shrug from Kylo.
"I've never seen any piece of equipment that runs its wiring and circuits this way! You're sure you know what you're doing?" The frustration radiated from Rey in waves, and the amusement that Kylo was receiving from watching her attempts only threw fuel onto the fire.
Almost twenty four hours without sleep should have caused his mood to deteriorate, as it had done whenever he had been at work for unbroken hours, but this was different.
There was no comparison to what he felt in the company of Rey as opposed to any other he had to spend time with. He didn't attempt to change or hide who he was for her. He had never felt this version of himself around anyone, and it was unnerving as much as it was comforting.
Kylo's lips twitched into a lopsided smirk as he held up his casing, wiring and circuits completely intact without any short-circuiting.
Rey exhaled sharply in her frustration, before conceding and rewiring as he had instructed.
"The way that kyber interacts with the mechanisms around it is unlike any other piece of machinery, hence why the secret is so closely guarded, and why every soul in this galaxy is not wielding their own saber." He raised his hand to lift a fine hook tool towards him from Rey's end of the workbench, grabbing it as it reached him and readjusting wires along the shaft for the kyber to fit the space.
Kylo had continued to wonder if finally creating a new saber for him was the correct thing to do. After all, he had held onto the kyber for so long, reluctant to attune them to himself but hesitant to let them go.
As he glanced at Rey working on her own saber, he felt the balance within his chest of what was happening; the determination and the fear, the hope and the revenge all melding into one.
Perhaps all this time, he wasn't wrong. Letting the past die was exactly what needed to be done, but it wasn't about two opposite sides in a galactic war.
It was about the balance in the force rather than a dichotomy; there was no space for pure light, lacking emotion, and there was no room for complete dark, fuelled by the overwhelming power of it.
It was about finding a harmony rather than discord, and as he sat opposite Rey, he had never felt that synchrony more.
There was peace and there was urgency, and their entwined existence between it all, balancing the conflict spanning generations before them both.
"I feel it too." Kylo looked up from where his gaze had been resting on his saber and met her eyes, tired from their work but shining with the balance of the force; between them, within them, and all around them.
Rey's burnt fingers twitched slightly, and Kylo could see the contemplation and longing in her eyes. He could feel her expression melt away any defence he had ever built, and, just as they had done the first night the walls between them had crumbled, he moved his scarred and still-healing hand to hold hers.
The warmth that radiated from her skin tempered the cold he felt at his, and he saw a flash behind hooded lids; a young girl, crying and desperate, small fingers clawing the vast sky above, as a vessel left the atmosphere.
It was her past, her abandonment. He had seen flashes of it before; he had seen the way tears streamed without end from her amber eyes.
The parents who had left in her such a way couldn't have been anything better than drunken lowly scum, he was sure. There was no other way someone could abandon a child in such a way.
Not her.
The pain he felt from the memory hesitantly met a wonder that cascaded through their connection from Rey. He wasn't sure what she had seen, but it filled her with such a radiant light that Kylo allowed it to meld with the second hand betrayal he felt. The echoes of light and dark rippled through the force and amplified through them both, connected not only by their bond but through the nerves underneath the skin of their palms and fingers.
It felt like electricity thrumming through his chest, a fire raging at his fingertips, and the tide of an ocean washing over his entire being.
The intensity of their connection and the force in that moment in time was so tangible it threatened to consume them both. Each moment they spent connected through their bond seemed to amplify the life and the death, the dark and the light, the shift and the stagnation of every single particle surrounding them both.
It was a power he had never felt in all his life.
It was a power of balance between both dualities of the force, but it wasn't a power he longed to control or command; it was a power that flowed freely, borrowed and channelled, but never used.
Rey's eyes were wide with the enormity of what was transpiring between them, and as her liquid amber eyes focused once more on Kylo's face, he was jolted by a sense of shock that overwhelmed her.
Her fingers slowly moved to meet the scar that contorted his features, brushing shakily across his face. She shook her head, astonishment coursing through the bond.
Kylo and Rey both opened their mouths to speak, confusion tangible in the air, when someone else's voice cut through Kylo's chambers.
Rey's eyes opened wider than he thought possible the moment Finn's voice echoed across the quarters, as fear and anxiety momentarily paralysed her.
Kylo saw Finn enter his vision and he willed the connection to close with every ounce of his being, but it was too late. Finn's eyes met his and it took but a split second for the former Stormtrooper to reach his blaster and aim it directly for his forehead.
"No!" Rey cried out, her body catching up with her mind as she jumped from her seat and threw herself at Finn, thrusting the blaster upwards just as he squeezed the trigger.
The blast hit the panels above Kylo's head, and he had to work to school his shock.
Their connection had grown far stronger than he had realised.
"Rey, look out!" Finn attempted to move out of her restraint, pulling his blaster from Rey's desperate clutches. "It's Ren!"
Kylo had stood now, backing away slowly. He pleaded within his mind for the connection to close, but it would not. He glanced at his cross guard which sat on the bench next to his near completed saber.
"Finn, stop this! I know!" Rey used the strength of the force to throw the blaster across the room, where it skittered across the dark tiles and collided with the far wall.
Finn's eyes darted to the blaster, and back to Kylo, before landing on Rey's with confusion.
"What do you mean?" Finn's eyes shot back to Kylo, and quickly about their surroundings, before an emotion all too familiar to Kylo shook his expression.
Finn's betrayal was palpable.
"You… You're working with him!" Finn spat, anger and hurt coursing through his being.
"He's working with us, Finn. Please, you have to trust me, you have to trust h-"
"Trust him? Trust HIM?" Finn made a break for the blaster, but Rey was quick, blocking his path and attempting to explain what was happening.
Kylo did not want to be here. He did not want to see what was happening. He did not want to hear what he knew would come next.
"Finn, stop!" She pushed on his chest, defiance and regret emanating from her being. She wished she had told Finn. She wished he would listen. She wished she didn't have to do this.
Kylo could feel all of it.
"This isn't you, Rey! He is manipulating you, controlling you!" The words bit more than Kylo would have liked. He narrowed his eyes at the traitor, anger brewing within his chest.
He knew the horror he had inflicted, but he knew more than he knew himself that he would and could never manipulate her.
"He is not manipulating me!" Rey yelled, the anger he felt now radiating from her in waves. Finn's eyes widened, sensing what was brewing between the two of them.
Kylo saw Finn begin to back off, when the pilot came scrambling into the room, alerted by their shouting. Poe's reaction to his presence was just as swift as Finn's.
"You!" He howled, throwing himself towards Kylo. Rey forced herself between Poe without hesitation, and he could feel how close she was to using the force to assist her in keeping him back.
"What in the stars, Rey! What are you doing with this monster?" Poe spat the words in Kylo's direction, still attempting to force himself past Rey.
Kylo could see from his eyes that he would happily strangle him with his bare hands.
"Poe!" Rey screamed, shoving him hard by the chest until he stumbled several steps backwards. "Will you can it and let me explain!"
"There is no way you could explain this to me, Rey! There is not one single excuse you could come up with that would make me understand!" Rey's anger was vibrating through the space between them now, and it was beyond Kylo that Poe could not see the danger in what was happening.
The combined darkness was untempered now, and their dual connection to this part of the force was tangible and writhing.
A thrill rose in the recesses of Kylo's being; frantic and sinister, anticipating what would come next. He could feel Rey's fury rise with each moment Poe yelled at her, throwing fuel on the cataclysmic fire that was about to erupt.
He could have revelled in the feeling of the dark surging around them both, but he saw what was only moments away from occurring. He saw the way her unrestrained dark could snap Poe's neck without even the slightest twitch of her fingers.
He saw the consequences of her complete darkness as clear as day.
Drawing in a deep breath, and ignoring the curses the pilot had continued to hurl his way, he reached out to Rey with a memory of his own. He remembered the night Finn had fought to protect her from Kylo on Starkiller Base. He allowed the memory of how fierce and loyal he had been to wash down their connection, watering down the darkness that rose to meet the light.
He didn't have a memory of Poe fighting for Rey, but he had a memory of him fighting to protect the coordinates to Luke, and a fierce protection of the droid who held it.
They fight fiercely for those they love. They are loyal to those who they call friends.
Kylo bit down on the jealousy the words caused him, but urged Rey to hold onto that.
He urged her to remember why they fought.
Not only could he sense the struggle within her, but he was nearly overtaken by it. The battle between light and dark within her chest was just that; a battle, and not a balance.
"Rey. Find the grey." Kylo could have called through their bond to her, but he needed her to hear the words; he needed them to be tangible in the air around them.
Finn's terrified expression and Poe's livid features turned to Kylo, confusion and anger etched into their faces.
He ignored them still, as he felt Rey reach for the balance. She took a deep breath, and called to the dark and the light at once, grounding herself in those emotions rather than drowning amongst them.
The terror on Finn's face quietened, as though he could feel the effect of Rey stepping back into balance, rather than writhing within the dark. Poe still looked livid, but he glared quietly now, as Rey steadied herself.
Sight of the three of them begun to fade, as finally, the connection faltered and was lost. Kylo let go of a breath he seemed to be holding, the strain of the past several minutes excruciating under the weight of sleeplessness and the fear of what the next several days would bring.
Kylo brought his palms towards his face slowly, ready to fall into them, when he caught sight of the skin there.
He believed his eyes were as wide as Rey's at what was missing.
Kylo's palms were clear, unblemished and unscarred for the first time in recent memory.
hey pals! i'm sorry it's been a little longer than I would like between updates, things have been hella busy! next chapter should be out this weekend so it'll be a little quicker for another update. thank you so much to redridinghood101, harrypanther and tpnka Hanuov for your reviews, and welcome to all the new followers and favouriters! I appreciate you all!
redridinghood101, i totally agree! i do really like the origin for kylo's cross guard saber, however in the context of the backstory i wanted to tell, there were too many plot holes and questions that i felt i couldn't fill/answer adequately. i also wanted to show that there were characteristics of han and leia in him still (han's cheek and leia's stubborness), even when he became snoke's apprentice. i hope that the origin i wrote wasn't too bad though!
thank you all again for reading this little story! current trajectory puts this one at around 20-25 chapters! we are going to start getting into the hectic half of this one very soon!
have a great day/night xxxx