Part IV

It was day two hundred and twenty-five when the bond opened again. It had been an uncomfortable four days as Kylo nervously carried Rey's saber on his belt next to his own, not wanting to waste a moment in presenting it to her when he saw her next.

Thankfully it was night time and he was alone in his office on the Finalizer when the bond opened. Rey looked up from her holopad as she sat crossed legged on her cot looking over the newest updates on the movements of the First Order.

Kylo stood from his chair the moment she came into focus.

"You took my sabers," Rey deadpanned, not really upset because neither one of them had control over when the bond would close. She was just terrified that one day she would be holding his helmet when it closed and she could imagine it being very difficult to explain why she had Kylo's mask in her quarters.

He smirked, knowing she was joking as she peeked one of her eyebrows at him. "I didn't mean to..."

Rey shifted on her bed and went to get the two kyber pieces out from the box that also held the letter that Kylo had written to her. "I'm guessing you couldn't help yourself and finished them."

She knew him too well, "I had help, but yes, all you have to do is place the crystals and secure the housing."

Being intrigued that he would let anyone else work on her saber, Rey was anxious to see it. "Well," she said coming back to the middle of the room, one kyber in each hand. "Don't keep me waiting."

Kylo shifted his hand behind his back and unhooked the joined hilt from his belt, letting it roll to the edge of his fingers as he presented it to her on flat palms. He watched her face with rapture, trying to read her reaction.

Rey's eyebrows came together and a slight frown set on her mouth as she reached out and took the two foot, double hilt from his hands.

"You don't like it," Kylo breathed, defeated.

"No, I do," Rey started, "it's just I expected more from you..."

His heart fell into the pit of his stomach. He had screwed up. He had let her down...again.

She watched him sink in on himself, run his fingers through his hair and start to pace, "I just figured because you are still here with the Resistance that you couldn't have anything too flashy." He turned back to her, "I can change it if you want me to. I can have it redesigned. Have it made from precious metals...anything you want Rey. Just name it and I will do it for you."

The poor boy, Rey mused to herself before she stepped up to him, placing her hand on the scar across his cheek. "You are right," she said softly. "It's perfect for where I am in life right now. Perhaps one day, when Rey the lost girl from Jakku becomes something different, I can reset my kybers into sabers more fitting to where this life takes me."

Kylo visibly relaxed, exhaling a large breath and he nuzzled into her hand that was still on his face. If she wanted to, Rey could have lifted on to her toes and easily brought her lips up to his downturned face, but instead, she blinked and release him, kneeling down on the floor and asking him to help her place the crystals.

Rey inspected the hilts further, the dark silver metal looked already battle worn and the slight dips and notches fit her hand perfectly. "What are these for?" She pointed to small nubs that came away from the hilt at forty-five-degree angles by the blade ends of the sabers.

"Just testing a theory," Kylo replied without really answering her question.

They worked for the next fifteen minutes securing the kybers into the focusing crystal chambers and then slid the hilt housings back into place. Rey looked down at her completed saberstaff in awe, never thinking she would have a weapon of her own.

"You should turn it on," Kylo whispered into the small space between them. He was just as excited to see his girl...his Empress with her lite saber, looking fierce, strong, and beautiful.

Rey nodded dumbly, still not being able to process the amazing machine that rested in her hands. This was a new era for Rey, not quite Jedi, never Sith, but in the between with Kylo...with Ben and she would wear her saber with pride. Coming to, she looked around her small quarters, "Not in here." She stood and even though it was the middle of the night she wanted to go to her clearing and ignite her saber for the first time under the stars. "Try to follow me the best you can," Rey knew that he would need to move around his environment to keep up. "We are going outside."

"I'll follow you though the Force," Kylo reassured.

He lost her a few time from his line of sight, but he could feel her through their bond and he easily found her after about a five minute walk. The lighting on her face was different and he could tell it was night time where she was as well. He thanked the Force when the room he ended up just happen to be his training room.

Rey stood in the middle of her clearing, feet shoulders width apart, with an overhand/underhand grip on the saber hilts. Her breathing was slightly labored and she looked from the saber up to Kylo, "Are you ready?"

He chuckled, "Are you ready?" He asked in amusement. Rey looked like she was about to burst.

She resolved her expression and nodded, moving her hands apart a little more, thumbs over the ignition switches.

"Wait!" Kylo's voice rang out, making her jump out of her concentration. He held out a hand and a stopping gesture, "Use the Force…" He had added that modification to the sabers and wanted to see her fully connect to her weapon.

Her brows came together in consideration before she nodded again, closed her eyes, took in a calming breath, released it and the only sound was a startling double snap and hiss.

Kylo stood in amazement of her. Rey's face was bathed in blue and her eyes had shot open in surprise to the fact that she was able to light the sabers on the first try.

"They're…they're like yours..." Rey tone held no displeasure or resentment.

"The kyber was broken, cracked like mine. There was a high likelihood that the blades would be unstable."

Rey now saw what the extra nubs were for, small blue flames shot out from the exhaust ports. The design was different than Kylo's cross guards, but the function was the same, to release the extra pressure from the unstable crystals. She marveled at it for another long moment, before she spun it a few times in her hands.

The swinging blades crackled in the humid air and while she missed the steady hum of Anakin's saber, this one was hers, something damaged and thrown away made whole again. It was perfect. She wanted to run and hug Kylo for his part in all of this, he was showing that he trusted her with his life since he had just given her the only weapon that could truly kill him.

But instead, she spun the ignited staff around her back and then lunged down into a defensive position, looking up at him through her lashes and curling her finger in a come-hither manner.

Kylo balked and then smirked, "Are you sure you are ready for that sweetheart." His father's pet name for his mother slid from his lips before he could think better of it.

"What, are you scared?" Rey teased back.

"Of you...always." He preformed his signature windup, stepping out to the right as he pulled his saber from his belt and it snapped to life. The forest around them glowed blue and red, all three blades spit off droplets of energy, their buzz chaotic and unpredictable.

They stood five paces from one another and he waited for Rey to make the first move, she always had, and she didn't disappoint.

With a feral yell, Rey rushed across the dew-damp glass and brought her saber from behind her back in a downward slashing blow. Kylo blocked it easily, stepping back on his nondominant foot to absorb the power behind her attack.

Kylo and Rey traded blows and parries, blocks and twisting near misses, neither one knowing how long they had been going at it, but both were panting for breath and covered in sweat. He had caught her a few times, bring his saber to her throat and asking if she yielded. Each time the fire would be reset in her eyes and she full on front kicked him in the gut, reestablishing her stance before fighting on.

They didn't use the Force, just their combat training, or in Rey's case, her survival by fire training, to circle on another, each trying to get the upper hand. Locked once more in an intense spar, trading parries and blocks like their muscles weren't screaming at them to stop, they didn't notice the interloper.

"Rey!" Someone in the tree line called.

She turned in the direction of the voice and it all happened too fast for Kylo to stop. His saber was moving in a front stabbing motion, one that she could have easily deflected by side swiping her staff, but as she turned, her attention elsewhere, he tried to drive the blade to the right, away from her body.

Rey cried out in pain and turned back to her attacker, dropping her saber, the blades deactivated and she grabbing at her left upper arm with her right hand.

Kylo quickly turned off his saber as well, using the Force to clip it back onto his belt as he held his hand up, palms out towards Rey, "Oh Gods..." Kylo said as he watched her teeth clench, sucking in a hissing breath of pain. "Rey, I am so sorry..."

Without a word she turned away from him, "I'm fine Poe...you just startled me and I burned myself."

Poe looked down at the dark silver hilt in the grass and then back up to Rey, "You built a saberstaff."

"I did…" she said flatly. "It was about time that your Jedi had a lightsaber too, you know twirl for the new recruits and make them go 'ooh and ahh'." Rey wiggled her fingers in the air for effect before using the Force to call her saber to her left hand.

Kylo still stood behind her, his breath returning to normal but he didn't like that they were interrupted, by the pilot no less. He didn't like that Rey had called herself his Jedi as if she belonged to Dameron or the Resistance. He didn't like how Rey was inferring that the Resistance was using her as a type of sideshow attraction to gain ranks. He didn't like any of it and if he could pull her through the bond to him with just a touch, he would have held on to her as if his life depended on it.

He refocused back on to the one-sided convention.

"I just finished it tonight and wanted to give it a test run..."

She threw her hands out to the side before hissing in pain again, pulling her hand back over the burn on the outside of her shoulder. "Does it look like there is anyone else out here with me? I was just running through forms."

This amused Kylo, trying to think what it would have looked like to an outsider, Rey going full force against an unseen opponent. Perhaps red sparks flying off into the dark night air as their blades met.

"I'm fine," Rey's voice cut again. "I can patch myself up, I have a med kit in my room."

Rey pointed out her hand as if telling Poe that he should lead the way when his back was to her, she looked over her shoulder at Kylo, his expression unreadable, but she dropped the hand from her wound and extend it behind her, asking him to follow.

The Force led him back to his quarters and Rey pulling on his hand, most likely dragging him into her room, she set her saber down on something low lying, her cot maybe, and she turned away from him, "I told you I'll be fine. I just need a shower and get some bacta on this burn."

Kylo already moved around his quarters, pulling out his med kit and setting out the needed items to treat a burn. It was the least he could do after marring her skin. "I'm sorry Rey," he said again, holding out his hand, hoping that she would join him and allow him to look at the angry red mark showing between her arm wraps and vest.

She took his outstretched fingers and sat on the edge of her cot. She found it quite poetic that he was the one now tending to her. It has been three months since Kylo had over turned the Senate and she had cleaned and bandaged the blaster shot to his forearm. "I know you didn't mean it. I shouldn't have allowed myself to be distracted."

He looked up at her through his thick dark lashes before starting to unravel the wraps from her arms. They were almost soaked through with her sweat, but he didn't mind, he hoped for a future of continuously unwrapping her from sweaty situations. He swallowed thickly as his finger tips grazed against her heated skin, but despite how warm she felt, gooseflesh bloomed on her skin as he lightly touched from the inside of her elbow and down her forearm, stroking the pad of his thumb across the pulse point at her wrist when the wrap fell away.

With her free hand, Rey worked at the buttons of her vest but hissed when she tried to roll it off her shoulders.

"Here, let me," Kylo offered, pulling her good arm out first and then with the most care, slid the garment down her left arm, avoiding the injury. She sat before him in a white sleeveless wrap tunic, which was almost transparent with the moisture of her exertion. He could see the lines of her breast band and he had to quickly advert his eyes as he watched her chest rise and fall with each of her deep breaths.

Opening his med kit he pulled out gauze and saline. "This is going to hurt," he knew from experience, even a grazing saber burn would sting like hell. He apologized again as he blotted at her wound with the cool liquid on the soft woven cotton square. Leaning in towards her, he blew across her skin, drying the area so he could dress it.

Rey visibly shivered and when he turned his head to hers, his lips still pursed as his warm breath ghosted across her shoulder, he noticed that her pupils were blown and she was panting out breath harder than when they had been sparing. "I'll give you something for the pain," he reassured, refusing to believe that she would be looking at him like that for any other reason apart from her discomfort.

He made quick work of adhering a bacta patch over the one by two-inch burn. Pulling a small one dose syringe for the med kit he pulled the cap off between his teeth, "This will sting, but it will allow you to get some sleep tonight."

Rey was finally able to breathe but did flinch when the small needle broke her skin and the medicine burned on its way in. "If you had pain killers, why didn't you let me use them on you?"

"Never used them before, didn't see a point in starting now." He threw the empty syringe onto the pile of gauze and bandage wrappers.

"I've never had them either...I once had a broken foot, back on Jakku, and had to sprint it myself before going back to work the next day." She had never shared much of her time back on Jakku with him, she was aware that he knew her upbringing was rough, but they mostly discussed the future these past few months.

"Well, I don't like seeing you in pain...pain that I inflicted..." he looking up at her face, seeing a slightly annoyed expression. "Even if it was inflicted unintentionally."

The exhaustion and the medication were starting to set in and she still needed to shower before going to bed, so she decided to let his comment go, not feeling like getting into a fight with him after he was being so sweet. So she conceded, "Thank you, Kylo. For everything."

"Anything...always..." he stumbled over his words before he tried to suppress the heat growing in his ears. "I still wish you would call me Ben...when it's just us."

Rey shifted on her cot, "I'm getting there...soon...I promise."

Gods he wanted to reach out and just take her face in his hands and pour everything he had into her, but he couldn't, not while he was still Kylo to her. So instead he just sat back on his heels, "You need a shower and I don't know how much longer the bond is going to hold out, so why don't you just pass me one of the Jedi texts and I'll read until I'm pulled away."

Rey chewed on her lip. They had never intentionally parted when they were alone in the bond. It felt like a waste of their connection to just go into the other room and not get the most out of the time they had together, but she was tired and the drying sweat was making her uncomfortable, so she agreed.

Maybe it was the morphine, or the gift of her saber, or a combination of all the parts of their growing bond and relationship over the past seven and a half months, but as she rocked forward to stand and retreat to her fresher, Rey leaned into his space and placed a quick kiss to right cheek, directly over her mark.

In stunned silence he sat frozen and watched her disappear behind the fresher door. She had forgotten to get him a book but he could have cared less. Using the Force he pulled his couch next to where she had been seated, right where her saber sat, just floating in mid-air. He looked at it for a moment, wondering why it was still visible in his environment, but not wanting to lose the elated feeling of her lips on his skin, he lounged back on his couch and closed his eyes, reliving the half a second that would be burned into his memory forever.

The bond opened in brief moments over the next month. Sometimes Rey would be sitting at supper when Kylo in full battle wardrobe would come swinging through the mess hall, face covered by his fearsome mask, calling out orders to his Knights before cutting down another foe. The two times that the bond had opened during one of his mission, Rey had jumped in her seat with a loud 'eek!' but had just passed her outburst off on seeing a mouse scamper across the floor.

She didn't know what to make of Kylo when he was like that. Following the First Order's advances in the cartel-run Outer Rim on the holonet, Rey knew that he wasn't cutting down villages of innocents, but there was something about watching him in command, leading his men at the front, that both scared her and excited her at the same time.

Rey practiced with her saber almost every day. Perhaps thinking that sometime in the future she would fight at his side again. Their victory in the throne room had been the complete doing of the Force, and the next time she had to fight for her life, or his life for that matter, she wanted to be prepared with technique and agility rather than the scrappy luck that allowed her to survive up until this point.

Many times their connections were just Rey and Kylo walking past each other on their way to a variety of responsibilities held by the Supreme Leader and the Beacon of Hope for the Resistance.

On one of these passing, Kylo moved around her, down a long hallway on the Finalizer, only tilting his helmet in regards. Rey turned to look behind her, watching his long sweeping robes sway with his lumbering steps, his fists were clenched at his side. But looking down into her hand, she saw a folded piece of parchment.

You are extending your nondominant foot too far back on high blocks and it is taking too much time to re-center yourself before your next attack. Also, protect your truck, wouldn't want someone to kick you in the chest.

Rey scoffed at his jab at one of her signature moves, having planted her foot on Kylo's middle a few times now. She also was a little down trodden with a note critiquing her saber forms, even if he was the only other person in the galaxy that could teach her, and she gave him credit for penning the note in his own hand and not some print out from a dataport.

Looking to the print below the crease of the paper, Rey attempted to hold her smile at bay. She was standing in the middle of the hangar and people milled all around her, but her insides felt like they were floating.

But you are beautiful and I would gladly watch your horrible forms for the rest of my days.

Always yours,

B

She read the note over a few times before tucking it into her jumpsuit, planning to put it with the other in the wooden box at the back of her dresser drawer.

They had meetings like that every few days, connected for a few seconds and up to a minute, but never being able to speak more than a few fleeting words to each other.

Rey was under that same damned transport craft again, this time working on the landing gear when she felt the bond open. Looking down at her feet that stuck out from under the ship, she saw the large black boots of Kylo. In a move that made her laugh, he bent his large form in half attempting to peek down at her, before finally crouching down to gaze at her grease slugged face.

His mask was on, but she could almost feel his smirk behind the layers of metal. He tilted his head in the way that she now found endearing. Reaching a gloved hand into a pocket on his surcoat, he produced a small box, perhaps not even two inches squared, tied with a light purple ribbon and another piece of folded parchment was tucked under the bow.

Kylo reached out and placed the box gently on her flat stomach, releasing it and the box became materialized in her world. Feeling brave, as he stood, Kylo ran his leather covered fingers up the incline of her thigh, losing contact with her as they came away from her bent knee. He stood and then was gone.

Rey's breaths came harder, the small box jostling under the movements of her abdomen in an attempt to get more air. These brief moment, even when there were no words, seemed to burn her alive with the intimacy of them. She felt as if they had the most important conversations about the galaxy and their place in it, without uttering a sound to one another.

Quickly moving from under the craft, Rey tucked the box into her tunic and shut herself away in a supply closet, unable to wait until after her shift was up to see what was inside. She looked at it at first as if it would explode if she opened it, not knowing what to expect from a gift from Kylo Ren.

Not knowing it was accustomed to read the card before opening the gift, Rey pulled at the purple ribbon, tucking the soft velvet string into her pocket. Removing the lid to the small white and purple box Rey's eyes went wide. Inside rested four of the most beautiful little candies that she had ever seen. The only exposure to sweets was what was provided in rations and she had tried a piece of birthday cake a few months back, but it was made from ingredients that were on hand and was dry and somehow bitter.

But these little confections looked like they were painstakingly made by the hands of a crafted master. She wanted to tear into them, shove all of them in her mouth at once, but instead slid the lid onto the bottom of the box and shuffled for the note, opening it almost too quickly to read his words within.

These were some of my favorite sweets from when I was a boy. They come from a little bakery in Hanna City on Chandrila. One day I will take you there and you can sample one of everything.

Always your,

B

Rey looked back down to the small truffles, stroking each one of them lovingly. He was opening up to her. Kylo never talked about his time before the academy. He was giving her more and more pieces of himself. So with resolve, she replaced the lid and told herself that she would wait to try the sweets until she was alone in her quarters or for when the bond connected them for more than a few seconds and she could share the treats with him.

The next item to come into her hand was a specialty socket. She had looked down at the small metal piece with confusion before reading the note.

Tools for those Old Republic ships can be hard to find.

Fly safe.

Always your,

B

AN: So I've had a really horrible week so far with work and your comments really are a bright spot in my day, so keep them coming. I decided to put up the next part for your viewing pleasure because you love for Reylo makes me so very happy. I don't want to get too far a head since I am still working on Part VIII, but I'll try to get some other parts up this week too.

Thanks for the love in advance! It saves this writer's soul.