Part III

They danced around each other for the next month. Kylo was busy setting the groundwork for his new governing power and spending a lot of time on Coruscant. Sometimes when they were alone he would describe the city to her or express his frustrations with Hux who was still itching to display his military's power and possibly redeem himself for the blunder of Starkiller. He asked her advice on topics ranging from taxes to education reform. When he could tell that she didn't completely understand what he was asking, he took the time to explain each part of the current system and why he felt it didn't work for the good of all. Her candor was refreshing and Rey was most likely the only person in the galaxy that could call him an idiot and live to see another day.

On night two hundred and one Rey was alone in her quarters flipping through the Jedi texts trying to find guidance. She had been working constantly on the increasing number of ships in the Resistance fleet and all the while feeling even more lost to her purpose here. Most of her spare time was spent in a small clearing just outside of the compound, either spent in meditation and connecting to the Force or on more frustrating days, practicing forms with her quarterstaff.

This particular night she was exhausted from a day of training but she was determined to find what she was looking for. But her fatigue quickly got the best of her and she drifted to sleep, her cheek pressed against the old rough page of one of the ancient texts.

Kylo was in his office on Coruscant when the sound was pulled from around him. She came into focus lying across his desk of all places and he leaned back in his chair, rubbed at his face and then did something he hadn't done in days. He smiled.

As much as he wanted to wake her, tell her about the struggles he was having with some of his advisors or how he had just commissioned a new command shuttle with turbo thrusters with twice the power, for he knew she would love the craft, he had built it with her in mind, but he dare not rouse her.

She looked so peaceful and the bags under her eyes showed that she needed the rest. There were also worse ways to have to work late into the night, than with his beautiful woman stretched out before him.

He pulled the book out from under her face, mostly to protect the thousands of years old ink from the drool that was threatened to spill from her puffing lips, but also because he was interested in knowing what she had been studying before sleep took her.

Flipping to the previous page to read from the header, "Kyber crystals..." he spoke aloud but when he hear her snort and start to stir, he lowered his tone, "You clever girl."

Over the next few hours he worked on a multitude of different tasks, but he had firstly taken out a blank piece of parchment, scratching out a quick note to let Rey know that she had missed one of their connections. He blew on the ink before folding the note in half, slipping it between the pages of the book and then sliding the text under her hand, assuring that it would travel with her back into her realm.

As he worked, he couldn't help but be distracted by her. She stayed on her side, facing him the entire time and he reached out a few times to tuck stray hairs behind her ear. Kylo even rolled his chair up next to her head, propping his heavy boots on the desk top by her feet, and scanned over the newest reports on his holopad.

It seemed so domestic. He could almost imagine them going to bed together each night, he would work too much and she would do everything in her power to bring him back to her. Kylo's eyes left the lighted screen and shifted over to her face and for just a moment he wanted to believe the vision that the Force had shown him would come true.

In one of the moments that he took to study her resting form, he noticed that her head was propped on a folded up blanket and he cursed himself for not remembering that he still had her pillow. So he stood up quietly and moved quickly to his sleeping chamber that was begrudgingly more than a hundred paces across his apartment.

Bypassing her pillow, with the military grade case that never got less scratchy no matter how many times it was laundered, he grabbed the Chammian Ivory covered down stuff pillow from his side of the large and empty bed. The fabric under his fingers was softer than silk and perfect for the head of a future Empress to lay upon.

He lifted her head with the greatest of care, his large hand cradling her face as if it was the last Holocron that held all the answers to balancing the Force. Slipping the plush material under her head, he gently laid her upon it. She moaned in her sleep, pulling one of her arms up and over the pillow, hugging it to her and buried her face in the soft fabric.

Kylo was frozen watching her breath in his scent and let out a sound that started deep in her chest. He groaned and wanted to reach for her, but as she clutched the pillow closer, she faded into the bond.

The next morning when she woke, Rey scrubbed her face against her pillow and sighed as it felt as if she was being kissed by a cloud, a cloud that smelled like him. She snorted and jerked her head up, looking down at the most luxurious material she had ever felt before she turned her head, searching her room for him.

With her jerking movements, the Jedi text tumbled off her cot and the pages fell open and a folded piece of paper floated across her floor. Scampering out of her bed, she caught it before it could slip under her door, leaned up against the wall of her quarters and unfolded the paper.

His script was neat and practiced, but there was a slight edge to it as if he had been nervous or distracted while penning the note. Her fingers traced the words as she read them.

Sleeping Beauty,

The bond has connected us and you can't even be bothered to be awake for it.

Rey saw the hesitation marks at the end of the sentence as if he was going to scratch it out, thinking that she wouldn't get his humor, which made her giggle more, putting her hand over her lips. Smiling into her palm she continues.

You look so tired and I wish I could absolve you of your worries and your pain.

There were a few pen points on the page as if he wanted to write more on the subject but decided against it.

I saw in the text that you were studying Kyber Crystals and the next time we meet I will answer any questions you have about them, but I have also including a list of materials that you will need.

Rey flipped to the next page and saw a list for twenty or so items that she could most likely find in the mechanic's bay in the hangar. Flipping back to the note she finished reading.

If you wake up before reading this and see me watching you as you sleep, please excuse the creeper factor of my actions. I am but a lost man being shown the meaning of his miserable existence.

Always yours,

B

Rey read the last line over a few times, both wanting to smile and cry simultaneously. It was so Kylo, poking fun at himself before making a very serious and intimate comment. At the bottom of the page she traced the B, he had signed it as Ben, and he was giving that part of himself to her, always and only hers.

She held the letter to her chest before standing from her place on the floor. Rey tucked the first page of the letter into a wooden box that she kept hidden at the back of her dresser drawer. She took the other page and slid into her packet, intent to slowly gather the items outlined on it in a way that she wouldn't be suspected of attempting to make herself a new saber. She already received guarded looks and heard the scared whispers of new recruits that didn't understand her powers within the Force and she didn't want to draw any unwanted attention to herself.

Thankfully the bond connected them nine days later, in the afternoon of day two hundred and ten. Rey was working in the hangar, trying to get the hyperdrive on an old transport ship to function properly.

"What are you working on?" Kylo asked. By speaking he was letting her know that he was alone and could interact. If she replied back then he knew that she was also alone, but if she just gave him a far off look, he knew that either they would exist around each other without the ability to speak to one another, or she would excuse herself so they would have some privacy. Thankfully for his weary mind that missed the slightly husky tone of her voice, she looked up at him with determination on her brow.

"This bloody hyperdrive has gone out twice in the past month and I can't figure out why the conductors keep blowing."

He watched her with fascination. The women he grew up around would never be caught dead under a starship, let alone in coveralls and cursing in Shyriiwook. But his woman was, and he loved her all the more for it. "Perhaps we can work on something else for a while?"

Rey slid herself from under the transport and looked up at him, taking his hand as he pulled her up off the ground. He wasn't wearing gloves and when their hands touched the bond sang, which they both felt but didn't acknowledge.

"Were you able to get the parts on the list that I left you?" He didn't dare bring up the other part of the letter.

"Yeah," Rey wiped her hands on a red cloth before walking a few paces away, gathering a bin from a shelf in her work bay. "I was able to find almost everything for the casing, but most of the saber specific items like focusing lens and emitter matrix, I don't think that I will have access to."

"I'll see what you have and anything you are missing I will get for you," he offered, starting to rummage through the bin that she kept one hand on so he could interact with it.

Rey placed her other hand on her hip, looking around the hanger to make sure that she was really alone. Most of the fighters were out on a mission and the other mechanical staff was taking a much-needed break before the pilots came back and started barking orders about what needed to be repaired before the next mission. "Well, you can't very well send me a crate of lightsaber parts signed hugs and kisses, Kylo Ren."

"I would never end a letter with hugs and kisses," he scrunched his face at the thought of it.

"Wouldn't you though," Rey challenged with a smirk.

"You are insufferable, woman." Kylo went back to pulling items out of the bin and setting them on the metal work bench between them.

Smiling at their easy banter, Rey looked at the parts that he selected and listened intently as he started to instruct her through wiring the power cells to the field conductors and energy gates. "What am I to do about a crystal?" She asked as the smell of melting solder wafted between them.

"Do you still have Anakin's lightsaber?"

"You mean the two pieces of Anakin's saber...yes I still have them," Rey answered only letting her gaze flicker up to him for a second before looking back down to her work.

"I think you should use that crystal. It called to you. It belongs to you as much as you belong to it."

"The crystal is broken, split in two." Rey realized that even though they had both been knocked out by the blast of the crystal coming apart, Kylo had not seen the damage they had done.

He watched her work for a long moment. "I wasn't trying to keep the saber..." he almost stumbled over his words. "Back in the throne room, I didn't want the saber." When her hazel eyes came up to meet his, his expression was open and vulnerable. "I was trying to keep you."

Rey sighed and set down the soldering iron, "I know...I know that now." She reached out and placed her hand over his, "I shouldn't have reacted like I did, but I was scared...scared of you, of our future, of what was next, and I just needed to run."

He gave her a tight lipped smile and nodded. He too knew that now, but when he woke alone in that damned room that smelled like death and ash, he had lashed out in the worst possible way and he was set to atone for it ever since.

Pulling up his other hand, Kylo reached for her face, pausing just before making contact, "May I?" He asked.

Rey looked from his face to his hand not sure what he was asking for. The confusion must have read in her expression because he explained. "I don't want to take anything from you or see anything you don't want me to. I just wanted to show you the design I had in mind for your saber." He looked down at the parts on the table and she could have sworn she saw a blush, "I'm shit at drawing and this is easier..."

Taking a large gulp of air and swallowing, Rey nodded.

His hand was warm against her face and he placed his two forefingers against her temple, before closing his eyes. Rey followed his example, closing her eyes and concentrated on the walls she had built up, but also welcomed the slight push from the Force.

It was not painful and didn't feel violating like on Starkiller. It felt like the gentle caress of a lover compared to how Snoke had ripped into her. But beyond the feeling of warmth that filled her body as his Force flowed into her, she was flooded with images of the most beautiful saber she had ever seen. Part of the vision that he push was not only detailed looks at the design but also an image of her, dressed in light gray robes running through forms like she had done dozens of times in the clearing.

"Beautiful," his voice sounded, seeing in his mind what he was passing to her. Rey, dressed in the finest robes, hair blowing wildly in the wind, as blue energy buzzed around her were images of his fantasies.

She felt his breath ghost over her and when she opened her eyes his face was mere inches from hers, their foreheads almost touching. "I love it," she said just above a whisper, feeling it would be a crime to break the sense of serenity that encompassed them.

"Me too," Kylo replied, pulling from her mind. His hand lingered on her face and his gaze drifted from her Force drunk eyes to her lips that were panting out breaths. Looking back up at her, his eyes screamed an unspoken question.

A wrench slid off the work bench and clattered to the floor, pulling Rey from her daze and she sat back into her stool. "I guess I will need to make two of everything then."

Kylo scratched at the back of his neck, feeling all of seventeen when he took the Princess of Datar to one of his mother's galas and attempted to steal a kiss from her at the end of the night. Back then he had stumbled through it, not knowing which way to turn his face and poking the poor princess in the eye with his oversized nose. He wasn't faring too well at thirty either it would appear.

The bond opened between them almost every day that following week. Perhaps the Force knew that Rey needed a way to protect herself and that she needed his help to safely construct the saber.

One night they worked on carefully extracting the broken crystals from Anakin's old lightsaber, Kylo explained that since Rey's weapon would be a saberstaff, that her blades would be shorter, so smaller crystals could be used. He regaled the story of the kyber crystal that fueled his saber, how he had been sent on a pilgrimage to Ilum in his late teens and was called to a brilliant blue kyber.

"But your blade is red and unbalanced," Rey mused as she continued to concentrate on wiring the vortex rings into place.

"The first saber I constructed, the one that protected me from my uncle's attack," he saw Rey's shoulder stiffen at the mention of the night that had changed everything for Ben Solo, but he continued, "it was simple, and had the clearest blue blade.

"When I fled the academy and went to Snoke, I trained with that saber for almost a year when the color started to change. The more I sunk myself into the Darkside of the Force, the more dark energy the kyber absorbed. By the time I was named Master of the Knights of Ren and donned my mask, the Lightsider hilt stuck out like a sore thumb and I was ready to rid myself of anything attached to the life of the weak and foolish Solo name.

"So I created a new hilt," he held out his cross guarded saber. "One more fitting to the term Knight, but when I was pulling my old kyber out, now a dark red having been bleed by the Darkness that grew within me, it cracked, hence the irregular blade."

"It's unstable," Rey picked up his saber, turning it over in her hands and feeling it's power. "Unbalanced."

Kylo for a moment was drawn back to the throne room when she had called his saber off of his hip, it had soared fast and true into her hands as if saying that yet another part of him was to bend to her whims. As he watched her small hands wrap around the black hilt, igniting the blade, and baring her teeth at his old Master, Kylo had wanted to come apart. But his mind had remained a blank plane of indifference for Snoke knew of his every intention.

But now, as his own Master, Kylo could fully admit that watching Rey weld his saber, his dark instrument that had ended so many lives, that had taken the life of his father…in that moment he wished nothing more than to throw himself at her feet and pledge his unwavering love and loyalty only to her. To rule at her side for all of eternity, for it was Rey's strength and heart that any man would follow into battle. She was now the Master and him, her ever faithful servant.

Rey looked over at Kylo when he didn't reply to her observation and the look in his eyes was dark and longing, pleading and forgiving, desperate but careful. She couldn't deny what those looked did to her body...to her mind. One part of her wanted to say, to hell with the sabers and throw herself into his arms, allowing him to do whatever his dark gaze was begging for. But the other part of her, the part that was scared of not being enough, of being used and then tossed aside, that giant part of her that still took up camp in her mind, was the part that told her to do anything in order to put some distance between them and change the subject.

So she coughed and placed his saber back on the floor of her quarters, before going back to soldering. They worked in tense silence for another half hour and finally, Kylo had carefully pried the old kybers from their prior housings with very little chipping.

"Give me your hands," he instructed.

Rey abounded the hilts and held her hands out, palms up, and watched at Kylo placed one half of the kyber in each of her hands. His fingers were warm, as he folded her hands over the crystals. "Meditate. Feel their power. Let it run through you. Let it become a part of you. You and your crystals will forever be connected and they will never fail you if you keep that connection."

As she nodded, tight lipped and determined, Rey closed her eyes and gave herself over to the Force. Kylo leaned back and bathed in her light a little longer than what could be considered proper before he picked up her two matching hilts, inspecting her work.

Then the bond closed.

Kylo cursed, the major parts to her sabers were still in his hands half way across the galaxy. Rey wouldn't be pleased, but he was going to take this time to check them over and make sure that when she finally ignited them, they wouldn't blow her small but strong hands off.

He called to his metal smith, the one that was responsible for furnishing and maintaining all of the weapons used by the Knights. He described the purpose and design of the weapon to Malkolm and only gave him two days to complete any necessary tweaks or improvements. Kylo would have preferred to make the modifications himself, but he already had to put off two meetings to spend time with Rey in the bond.

When he received the hilts back they were just as rugged looking at Rey's quarterstaff. Kylo had considered plating rings of gold around the hilts or setting her switches with jewels, but also knew that anyone seeing such a lavish weapon hanging off the belt of a lowly Resistance fighter would start to ask questions.

So he assured that it looked as if it was made by her own hand, but the welds and wiring were up to Malkolm's perfectionist standards. As he held the two foot long double sided hilt in his hands, he noticed the smaller girth that would be more comfortable in her small hands.

Twisting the two pieces, they came apart into separate sabers and he mused that he would have to teach her how to fight two handed. Turing the hilts over he looked at the bases, where the two sides latched back together, he checked the custom work he had requested with the upmost discretion.

"This is perfect Malkolm. You have out done yourself again."

The elder man with a long white beard and dark robes bowed, "It is always a pleasure to serve my Master." His tone was dry, but he was loyal to a fault. "If I may be so bold sir. A saber hilt is a rather unorthodox way to woo a woman."

Kylo smiled to himself, "She's not a typical woman...she is my Empress." He nodded excusing Malkolm from the room, watching as the graying man bowed again before turning to exit Kylo's office.

He was still on Coruscant but was expected back on the Finalizer the next day, having to travel to some Rim worlds that were still having issues with the cartels and drug runners. Holding her hilts in his hands, he itched to swing his own saber against a foe.