Star Wars: Division

I think I mentioned in Chapter Two that this was going to be one of those agonizingly slow-burn types of stories, and like I said in the header of Chapter Six, I'm approaching this fanfiction from a more… professional viewpoint? I mean, obviously I'm just a fan having some fun, but I want it to read like a book. So, once again, be patient with me. Haha. I know Reylo and the romance is what everyone is after, but I just don't want to rush right to it because I think they have a lot of mess to work through and rushing to it would feel inauthentic. I also don't know why I'm venting all this here - no one has complained. I guess it's just a writer's insecurity? *strokes beard introspectively* All the same - thank you to everyone.

To all my readers, please enjoy.

Chapter Seven

"I thought you were sleeping," Leia said as she looked up from the navigational map. Currently, the small band of misfits that comprised the Resistance was on its way to Vrogas Vas - an old Rebel fueling station that had been abandoned in the days of the Empire and the abyssal Darth Vader. After a battle that had pitted three sides against each other - two of which had been Imperial forces - the Rebels had fled their station, and the planet, and never returned. They flew there now, under Leia's advisement, as part of a gambit that, as usual, could see them all dead if they weren't careful or they were unlucky. Likely both. But that was the life of a Resistance fighter - always on the move, never resting, never truly happy, always panicked.

Rey felt that more than any other Resistance fighter left. Even more than Leia, who was herself looking worn and tried as she leaned over their makeshift strategy table, monitoring their progress through hyperspace with creases between her eyes. As the General, and the only leader left who had years of experience and know how, the fate of their group certainly rested heavily upon her shoulders. It wasn't that Rey doubted that, or was trying to make their ordeals a competition. But where Leia had those years of experience, she certainly did not. People were expecting her to do the kinds of amazing things Luke Skywalker had done - the sort of things his sister did on the battlefield and off, in those years she'd served as Senator and fought against things other than blasters and Star Destroyers.

"I could say the same," Rey said as she came forward, out of the hallway, and into the common area proper. The General gave her a small smile and gestured for her to take a seat. Rey did so, and Leia sat down next to her with a sigh.

"Can't sleep, I take it," Leia said ironically. She rubbed her forefinger and thumb across her tired eyelids.

"No," Rey said lowly. "I'm exhausted, but I can't sleep for longer than an hour or two. My dreams," she said, licking her lips. "They're restless, scattered. I hear things, see things, and I can never make them out. It's confusing."

"It's the Force," Leia said knowingly. She looked at the young warrior and felt just a touch of pity. And nostalgia. She had seen this sort of look before - in her brother. After Yoda's passing on Dagobah, Luke had been wayward, too. Lost. Confused. He'd just witnessed the death of their father, who had been the right-hand of a tyrant for so long, murdering and pillaging, but ended up dying a hero to save his son's life. Luke hadn't known what to do or where to go. And just like back then, Leia couldn't help. As a Force-sensitive she could understand the troubles of Force-users, but she herself had never trained or studied the same way Luke or the other Jedi had. That wasn't her path in life.

Rey looked to her expectantly, but it quickly faded when she saw the lackluster expression on Leia's face. "You can't help me," she said sadly.

"I can't," Leia confirmed with another sigh. "Much of that is beyond me."

"But what about during the evacuation? When you brought yourself back to the Raddus after the bridge had been blown up?"

"I knew that was coming so I had time to meditate. Luke did show me a thing or two." She placed a hand on Rey's and smiled sadly. "But I can't help you like a teacher should, Rey. I turned from that life to be a Senator, to be a wife. To be a mother," she said the last words quietly, nearly a whisper, and her mouth turned down in the corners as if even saying it had caused her physical pain.

Leia had been unable to help Ben Solo due to her lack of understanding in the Force and the Jedi Order. That same inadequacy plagued her still, as she looked at the lone Jedi before her who was in desperate need of a teacher. Leia felt her failure with her son anew through the failure she experienced on the Falcon with Rey. An old wound cut back open to bleed fresh blood.

Poe and Finn had both told her, fully animated, how Kylo Ren's TIE Silencer had first blown up the Raddus's docking bay full of X-Wings, and then gone on to shoot up the bridge, which was vulnerable because of the high concentration of their shields on the stern of the ship. If what Leia said was true, and she had known about the coming attack, it meant she felt it through the Force and, most likely, had also felt her son.

Rey frowned. "It must've been hard knowing Kylo Ren was coming to kill you like he did Han Solo."

"It wasn't him," Leia said lowly, looking down into her lap so that Rey couldn't see her expression. "He led the squadron and we sensed each other in the Force, yes. There was a moment, the briefest of moments, that I thought he would shoot. But he didn't." She took a pause, and Rey felt suddenly uncomfortable as if she were an intruder witnessing a very personal matter that was none of her business. "At the last second, he eased off his trigger and it was one of the others that fired," the General finished and looked up, her eyes watery.

Rey didn't know what to say. Here was the General about to cry in front of her, and she was speechless.

"He didn't do it, Rey," Leia said suddenly with a sudden surge of emotion as she grabbed her hand. "He didn't do it. There's good in him, I've always known it. When he had the chance he didn't do it," she insisted.

Having spent her own time getting to know the enigma that was Kylo Ren, she certainly understood Leia's faith in her son wasn't just that of a desperate mother who wanted to believe their child could come back into the good graces of the Light. Leia wasn't delusional. She saw the good in Kylo Ren like Rey did - through the Force. It was something very few were able to feel, and so to most of the Galaxy he was just a terrifying, murderous death machine rolling through cities and planets alike to enforce Snoke's will - now his own. But the two women sitting side by side, speechless and morose, sensed the deeper inner workings of the mysterious figure, and it confused them both. And gave them hope.

"I love my son," Leia said, squeezing Rey's hand. "I do. I hope, at the end of this, there's still something left of him." With some sniffling, Leia released the younger woman's hand and wiped gingerly at her eyes.

Rey could only hope for the same.

"How much further to Vrogas Vas," she said in order to change the subject.

"Not too long," the General replied, grateful for the switch in topic. "We need to get to the ground for those X-Wings to refuel. Our bigger problem, though," she said with a swipe across the holopad, "is getting us a battle cruiser for those X-Wings to dock in while they're not in use. They can't keep flying alongside us through space. Not only is it a waste of fuel, but even pilots can't live in their cockpits all the time," she said with a grin.

Rey laughed lightly. "I don't know, I think Poe'd like to try. He would if you let him."

"I don't doubt it," the older woman said with a chuckle. "He's not out of his cockpit even when he is. Once a pilot, always a pilot," she said with a far off, glassy look in her eye. Rey got the distinct impression her General was not talking about Poe Dameron with that last statement, though it certainly applied.

"They haven't eaten for ten hours," Rey said with a smirk. "They'll get out of their fighters for that."

"Well, let's hope," Leia said, with a hearty laugh. She eyed the young Jedi for a moment, then returned her gaze to the holopad. "Why don't you try and get some rest? Even an hour will do you some good."

Rey sighed, but quickly perked up with a smile. "You're probably right. I should try." She stood. "Thanks for the chat."

"Any time, Rey," she reached out to take her hand and squeezed it. "Any time," she repeated.

They said their farewells.

Perhaps the impression she'd given was that talking to Leia had in some way eased her mind, but that was far from the case. She was more torn, more confused. Word had gone around that the attack on the bridge was due to Kylo Ren - that evil bastard - and yet according to Leia, that wasn't true. Why didn't the General tell everyone the truth? What good would it do, she thought ruefully. No one would suddenly feel sorry for Kylo Ren, or sympathetic. Especially not now he's the Supreme Leader. No, it was a truth that mattered only to her and Leia, the man's mother. Beyond that, it would've been a truth too good for the Dark Force-user and his pitiless soul.

Once more, she stepped into the small quarters that served as her bedroom and sat down on the edge of her bed. Before her, on the small desk, sat the two halves of her lightsaber, the ever present problem she just couldn't solve. Frustration made her want to pick up the two useless pieces and throw them against the wall, but her fear it would further break something - or worse, dislodge the kyber crystal - kept her from acting on that frustration. What she wouldn't give to have one more opportunity to talk to Luke. Even if she only had time to ask one question, being able to understand the construction of a lightsaber was vital information.

"Master Skywalker," she said into the stillness of her room. "Master Skywalker," she repeated, pushing out into the Force. What was she expecting? He hadn't wanted to train her in life; he certainly wouldn't come back from the dead to do it.

Instead, she kicked the edge of the desk in annoyance a couple of times, just to vent her emotions in some small, pathetic way. Something was better than nothing. What really would've done the trick is a battle, but they'd just escaped one. And her emotions on that were decidedly unJedi-like. Something she'd realized with dismay, but had been unable to reconcile. There was no regret over killing the stormtroopers and, if she was honest with herself, she did think death was better than being enslaved by the First Order. At least they were free. Not all of them could escape like Finn had.

Maybe it sounded cruel, but something Rey had picked up on quickly through her experiences with the Resistance and the First Order alike was that there were worse fates than death out amongst the brightly lit stars and planets of their beloved Galaxy.

Was that how Kylo Ren saw it? That death was a far less painful course of events when thinking about the enslavement, the destruction, the blood and violence - the heartbreak - that lay in wait for unsuspecting people to fall victim to? She supposed that may be true; he carried a lot of pain and confusion and turmoil within himself at all times. It'd be easy to see death as a release, rather than something ill-fated.

With a sigh her ran a hand down her face. There she was again, sympathizing for Kylo Ren. It was too difficult to see him strictly as the enemy. They were so alike, sometimes, that it scared her. Would she befall the same fate? Would she turn from the Jedi Order and become a Dark Force-user who only grappled with their own failings and torment by venting it on others across the Galaxy? Making others suffer so that she could feel better? Was that why he did it?

No, Kylo Ren was many things, but a petulant child trying to make others feel what he felt by being cruel and twisted was not one of them. His motivations were pure in nature, she sensed that. It was the execution that was the problem, and his belief it was the only way.

Next to the pieces of the lightsaber lay one of the Jedi texts - open a few pages in where she'd left it after dinner. She moved the cog that was acting as a paperweight, and picked up the book, then sat back down on her bed and let her eyes scan over the page. It wasn't the lightest of reading, that was for sure. She struggled to grasp the concept of simultaneously loving everything and nothing that seemed to be the foundation of Jedi teachings. Personal love was forbidden - it could disconnect a Jedi from their relationship to the Force, or else lead down a dark path a Jedi may not come back from. But a Jedi should feel a widespread love of all living things through the Force, a massive respect that blanketed all creatures, all people, all species and races. To be connected to the Force, but not invested in it emotionally, was something of a problem for Rey. She'd spent all those years alone on Jakku only to finally find a place she could truly call home, and people she could regard as her family. And now the Jedi teachings were telling her these feelings were unwelcome, that they could lead to darker things - fear, hatred, suffering. Finn, Rose, Poe, Leia, Chewie - was she just supposed to forget?

Another sigh, and more frustration, she covered her eyes with her hand and held herself there. Thoughts spinning. What was she going to -

And just like that, he was there. The weight of his gaze was so palpable, even across time and space. But she didn't lift her head; she kept it cradled in her hand. Tired. Too tired to do the mental and verbal dance she played with Kylo Ren in secret.

The Jedi text was still firmly gripped in her hand. "Reading," his deep voice echoed through the Force.

"You could say that," she said, her voice heavy.

"So was I," he said, and she heard the dense thud of a rather thick volume coming to rest upon his desk as he put it down. "Anything interesting," he joked; she wasn't sure if he was trying to be playful, or he was simply trying to mock her.

"You could say that," she repeated.

"Rey," the sound of his worry transmitted well across the distance that separated them. "Did something happen?"

"No," she said slowly, and finally lifted her head to look at him, bleary eyed. "I'm just tired." She yawned. "So tired. I don't know if I can do this right now."

Yes, he'd noticed the worn and battered look of her, but hadn't said anything because he didn't think it was his place. He'd seen that look before - he knew it well, in fact. It was how he'd looked after first arriving at Luke's Jedi Temple.

"It's the Force," he said plainly.

She lifted her head up again. This time, she took a good look. He was sitting, gloves off, his fingers interlaced in his lap as he regarded her. Studied her? Was that right word? Her eyebrows raised a bit. "What?"

Something pulled at his mouth - a smile? "The Force. You're so tired because the Force is moving through you, like a conduit. It happens with all new Force-users who have the potential to be great and powerful. You've opened yourself up to it too much. You need to pull back."

"Pull back," she questioned, and straightened her posture in interest. "Pull back from the Force?"

He considered her words a moment. "Not pull away from it. But close your connection to it. It passes through strong Force-users like electricity does through conductors. Sometimes that amount of connection can help a Force-user see things - distant things, things in the past or future. But if you're connected to it all the time it will drain you. You're basically experiencing the lives of everyone the Force is reaching through you."

It must be true. All her dreams - the visions, the voices, the swirls of erroneous colors that muddled her brain. Perhaps it was because her dreams were actually the lives of others; hearing their conversations, feeling their emotions, reading their experiences.

"Center yourself," he said calmly. "Feel your connection to the Force. When you find it inside yourself, reign it in."

With a determined sigh, she closed her eyes and found her center - something she had been practicing through the few Jedi meditations she'd tried. At least this wouldn't be too difficult. From her center, she felt the Force outside of her and within her - but also something else. A current of the Force that was, just as he'd said, passing through her, using her to strengthen itself. With a careful touch, she gently moved the boundaries of her connection with the Force backwards, limiting its ability to influence her. When she finished, and brought herself out of meditation with careful, measured steps, she came back to the present feeling renewed.

He regarded her. "Luke didn't teach you this?"

She gave him a hard look and tisked through her teeth bitterly. "He didn't teach me much of anything."

"He never was much of a teacher," Kylo Ren agreed, thinking back to the long-buried memories of his youth.

Silence filled the room, and it made her uncomfortable. Oddly, they'd never had this amount of awkwardness between them, and its sudden presence made her want to squirm in place. But she supposed it was up to her to speak on the matter first. After all, she'd been the one who got carried away. "Look," she paused to gather her resolve. "I'm sorry… about what happened the other - I," she struggled to get the words out. Why was this so difficult? "I mean, I don't know what came over me. I'm sorry."

"I don't need an apology," he said simply, but it held a distinctly sensual undertone.

She swallowed. How was he so composed, while she was a jittery mess? He was okay with everything that had happened? He was okay with her hands gripping him, touching him, moving along his bare chest as she -

It wasn't time to relive the moment, she scolded herself. But she wanted to. If she could, she'd do so right then and there, with him so close and willing. Surely, if she just went to him and kissed -

Stop it, she scolded herself again. This isn't the time. When is, asked some rebellious, sexual part of her mind.

"Well, I just -," she began, but then felt like an idiot. What was she even going to say? She'd just opened her mouth to utter some throw away comment to try and diffuse the tension, but hadn't thought at all about what she'd actually say. "I just wanted you to know, that I -"

His voice was deeper than before. "I don't need an apology," he interrupted her.

She nodded stupidly. "Okay." She gave him a lopsided smile - it was all she had.

As usual, his expression didn't change; it certainly didn't smile. But the look in his eyes and the shape of his mouth were soft. Relaxed.

Then, her eyes were drawn to a blue glow emitting from the desk. She looked over, and saw the kyber crystal softly vibrating. With interest, she reached over and picked up the half that contained the crystal and looked inside. The light swam across her face.

"I need help," she confessed suddenly, sadly, as she gazed at the benevolent light of the crystal. "I don't know what I'm doing."

The crystal was speaking. What it was saying, he couldn't know because it wasn't speaking to him, but seeing Rey hold his grandfather's lightsaber with such care, and such reverence, he knew what he had to do. He'd resolved to teach her. He told himself it was because it'd be a simple way to earn her trust, but the deeper reason - the one he felt floating in his heart - was something different entirely.

"Come here," he said, and got up from his chair. He stepped closer to her, and she did the same, until they met in some odd paradox of time and space and could touch each other, if they so desired, by simply reaching out their hands. They sat, cross-legged, before one another, almost as if they were going to meditate. But instead of initiating the mental exercise, he reached out his hand. Before, Rey may have hesitated to give him the saber, but when he reached out his hand she gave it to him without thinking. A symbol of trust.

As his bare fingers curled around the hilt, their fingers touched. It sent a small thrill through her, but she kept her face blank. She released the lightsaber from her grip, fully intending to let him examine it. But though they could touch it together, as soon as she let go, the lightsaber came to her hand, and would not cross whatever boundary line still existed and could not be broken even through the Force.

"Hold your end," he mumbled gently, already in deep concentration as he leaned himself forward to gaze into the broken half's opening.

She did so, and kept her hand around the lower end of the saber. He gently moved the hilt to and fro as he looked inside it, searching for what, Rey didn't know.

Like this - just talking, just being, working on something - she felt their friendship most of all. It swelled inside her, made her chest hurt, like an emotion too strong and too good to go unfelt.

"What are you looking for?"

"Parts," he mumbled.

She sighed. "I'd hoped you'd be able to fix it because I have no idea how to make a lightsaber."

"I'll show you," he mumbled again, his eyes still locked on the inside of the handle. He placed his hand over it.

She felt him in the Force. "What are you doing," she asked, slightly worried. Was he trying to sabotage it?

He could've laughed. "I'm trying to disassemble it. Some of the parts inside can be reused, but a lightsaber only comes apart through usage of the Force."

"What do you mean?"

He didn't respond immediately. There was a furrowed look of concentration on his face as he tried to do - well, whatever it was he was trying to do. The hilt began to vibrate in their hands, then escalated into some strange jerking motion that she could barely keep her grip on. "Should this be happening," she asked with worry. Her fingers tightened around the hilt so desperately her knuckles blanched.

"No," he grunted in frustration. With a huff, he stopped exerting in the Force, and the hilt instantly went still. "It won't allow me."

It was fighting against him - the kyber crystal. It didn't want to acquiesce to his wishes, so his energy and its energy clashed and made the broken components unstable. Besides that, trying to move the Force across it through the mammoth distance of light years probably wasn't helping much.

"You need to disassemble it. The hilt," he added when she looked confused. He twisted slightly and reached out his hand for his own lightsaber, which came sailing off his desk and into his palm. He laid it down in front of him and used his unique bond with the blade and their connection in the Force to levitate it and slowly unwind all the pieces and components that made up its completed form. It was more complicated than most hilts, given its design, so there were certainly more pieces to his saber than there would be to the one Anakin Skywalker built. He told Rey this when her mouth fell open in shock, worried she'd never be able to understand lightsaber construction.

"Your kyber," she said with a worried gasp. "It's cracked!" She moved as if to reach out and take it, but refrained. "Did I maybe break it?"

Again, he wanted to laugh. "How could you have broken it?"

She shrugged and rubbed her arm with the opposite hand nervously. "I don't know. Maybe when I called it to me on the Supremacy. Maybe I pulled it too hard."

"The crystal has always been cracked," he said, laying a hand on hers to stop her nervous ministrations. "It certainly wasn't because of anything you ever did."

"Oh," she said quietly. She watched him take the kyber between his thumb and index finger and examine the fissure line running from top to bottom right down the middle. "What cracked it, then?"

"That's a story for another time," he said evasively, and replaced the kyber in the levitated formation of his lightsaber as it stayed steady above them.

That wasn't the answer she'd been hoping for. They'd been growing close - she wanted truth, honesty. She wanted him to be forthcoming for once. In some desperate attempt to disarm him, the question blurted out of her mouth. "Why did you hate your father?" She had asked this before, but his answer of "I didn't hate him" had never made sense to her. She needed to know.

His body visibly stiffened. Yes, this was perhaps not the best topic of conversation when things between them were finally beginning to feel comfortable. "You hung on to your parents for a long time, Rey," he said with his head still raised towards the disassembled pieces of his lightsaber as he carefully examined each part and piece, no matter how small. "Please don't hang on to mine."

He strictly meant to be evasive, unwilling - still - to give her a straight answer. His words were not intended to hurt her, but they did. It stung. Mostly because it was such an astute observation that all but threw her weaknesses directly into her face.

"Why won't you answer me," she said, slightly irritated.

"Because you wouldn't understand," he said baldly.

"Yes, I would," she said indignantly.

"So, the girl that's too attached to her own parents, would understand why I was able to detach from mine?"

She opened her mouth, but quickly closed it. Damn him.

Fine. She'd drop the subject and get back to the task at hand. "So, can it be fixed?"

With ease, she watched all the intricacies of his lightsaber slowly come back together, and then seal inside the large, black hilt. He gave her a sidelong look. "It completely split in two. You repair ships, don't you? You didn't really think it could be fixed like this, did you?" His gaze lowered back to the half she was still holding, the insides facing him. He looked at her. "How much do you know about kyber crystals?"

"Only as much as you've told me. The Jedi texts haven't mentioned them, yet."

"Kyber crystals are so powerful and important to Force-users because they're naturally attuned to the Force. Typically to the energy of Light side wielders. They can reject a user or accept a user. It's how a Jedi finds their kyber during their lightsaber training. They seek out the voice of the kyber that is responding strongly or positively to their energy."

Now her brow was the one furrowed in concentration. "So, it's like a living thing?"

"Yes," he let his hands fall to his lap.

"And it, it," she looked for the correct words, "it won't allow you to disassemble it?"

"No," he sighed heavily. It was a disappointing feeling, having his grandfather's lightsaber reject him.

"So…," her words trailed off. She stared at him expectantly, but he just returned the stare. Did he look amused? "Okay, so," she said with a sudden burst of urgency and impatience. "Now what?"

"Now, Jedi," he said with the closest thing to a grin she'd ever seen. "You disassemble it."

"But I don't know - "

"I'll guide you."

All right. Okay. She could do this. She wanted a teacher, she wanted guidance, and here it was. And, if they were successful, she'd get her lightsaber back, and that would give her an odd sense of relief and comfort. It was strange how dependent Force users became on their weapon, but she supposed it made sense knowing what she knew now - that the kyber was sentient, and matched itself to the user's energy. It bonded the user to the saber by making a deep connection in the Force. But then -

"Wait," she said, more curious on the way the crystal worked. "If a kyber bonds with its user, then why did Anakin's lightsaber come to me? Why did it respond to you in the throne room? Why did yours come when I called it?"

He considered her question. "I think Anakin's kyber and mine are similar in their connection to the Force. Both are accustomed to temperamental users, and are perhaps temperamental in their connection to the Force as well." He lowered his eyes to his hands in his lap. "Anakin Skywalker was a powerful Jedi. He did a lot of good during the Clone Wars."

"Really," she said with interest. She knew the stories of Darth Vader; even some 30 years later, his legacy of terror still lived on. But she'd never heard about his days as Anakin Skywalker, and certainly not about The Clone Wars.

Kylo Ren nodded. "Yes, he was a Jedi Knight before he became Darth Vader. He and Obi-Wan Kenobi, his Master, saved a lot of people. He tried to make a difference."

"Then," she said, now more confused than ever. "Why did he become Darth Vader? How could a person like that turn to the Dark Side, and become so evil?"

His eyes were dark. "No one is infallible, Rey." There was a menacing undertone that made her draw back slightly.

"But - "

Kylo Ren didn't turn away, but his next words certainly weren't for her. "I'm meditating, Captain. What is it?"

She watched him in silence. He did the same. She couldn't hear the response from the other side. Perhaps their words were too quiet to travel across their bond in the Force.

"Tell the delegation I'll be there immediately."

He stood and she did the same, giving him a hard look, a look that demanded some kind of explanation. But he stared at her just as hard, his eyes still dark and impassive, as he clipped his lightsaber to his belt. Then, turning away from her, he put on his helmet and cowl and gloves, and gave the fingers a flex inside the black leather. "Your training will have to wait," came his voice through the helmet, distorted and unnatural.

But she didn't want to say good-bye. She'd been learning so much. And she still didn't know how to disassemble her lightsaber. "Ben, wait - "

But he had already made it to the door, and had already walked through it without a backwards glance.