CHAPTER 10

Don't Leave me Now

They had found him. One second he was seeing Rey the next he was seeing bounty hunters. Ben readied his lightsaber and reached out with the force. His connection to the Force allowed him to not only see the intent of his attackers but also the lines in the Force that he could effect. He could sense that there were more of these bounty hunters coming. He wouldn't be able to hold his own against them for long, but he had no choice but to try. He would likely die or be severely injured here, and part of him would prefer death to letting Hux capture him.

"Ben!"

Ben looked up and started. Rey, it wasn't the normal materialization or vision of her in the Force. No, this time she was actually manifesting. He wanted to tell her to be careful but her movement through the Force was nearly effortless. There was something in the Force that told him it wasn't just her need that brought her here, but his own as well.

Just as in Snoke's throne room they barely needed to speak to know that it was time to fight back to back. He felt her press herself to his back and ready her staff. The staff would be useless against the blasters so he tried to indicate over the link some of his training with holding off or deflecting blasterbolts with the force.

He sensed her acknowledge the wisp of skills being transferred to her and then as if someone had fired off a signal the fight began. Back and forth they fought in tandem, he blocking bolts and her parrying physical blows with her staff. Just as in Snoke's throne room, they were matched and paired in a way that defied logic. The bounty hunters were coming out of nowhere dozens upon dozens were filling the spaceport.

He tried to keep some part of him mind on Rey at all times but there were too many people, too much to focus on and everytime he felt her brush against him as their backs were turned to each other he felt a momentary surge of relief that she was still there.

Everytime they jumped away from eachother to attack Ben felt a sense of something frightening. She had jumped into this fight so willingly. He could sense the fear from her, not for herself, but for him. She didn't want him to die. If he'd had time to ponder the feelings coming off her he might have let himself feel warm. She felt for him, but it wasn't a pitying feeling, but a compassionate one.

He wanted to stop and mull over the feelings, but he couldn't these bounty hunters kept coming and it was getting worse. It was like one of them had shot a beacon off because they were coming in droves.

Suddenly there was a shout of warning and a woman with a shaved head jumped into the middle of a pack of bounty hunters and they scattered. She drew out her lightsabers, a set of daggers no bigger than her forearm, and made quick work of the handful around her.

"Vic!" Ben shouted by way of greeting and accusation.

"I realized you were here when you arrived. I wondered if I should let the bounty hunters get you but I figured that would be no fun!" she said as she backed up to circle the bounty hunters from the outside. "Haven't you figured out that getting trapped in a circle like this is bad tactics?!"

"Not now!" Ben shouted and sliced off three offending hands reaching out with blasters in one fell swoop.

Rey and Ben had been holding their own against the tide of hunters but with Vic Elan in the fight it began to shift in their favor. However, none of them noticed the Guavian hunter until it was too late. The Guavian somehow found an opening and got between them and just as Ben turned to cut him with his saber the Guavian jumped up with a jetpack with his arms wrapped around Rey. Rey screamed in anger and tried to hit the Guavian with her staff. Just before he touched down on the other end of the docking platform he managed to knock the staff out of her hands.

Rey fought back with a physical prowess Ben knew she had acquired with many a fist fight on Jakku. He lost sight of her as another Guavian bounty hunter tore through the sky at him. He managed to hit the hunter out of the sky with his saber. He saw an opening with Rey.

"REY!" he called out vocally and through the Force. Just as Rey had thrown him her saber back in Snoke's throne room he threw his at her. But just as she gripped the saber in her hand and activated it the Guavian pressed his percussive cannon against Rey's back and fired. Everything seemed to hit slow motion then. The saber blade went through the Guavian's neck, right where its neuralnet processor would be. But it had been too late. Rey and the Guavian fell.

"Rey! No! Rey!" He tried to go to her but more bounty hunters appeared and in a fit of rage Ben killed them all by manipulating the force to break bones, crack necks, and throw bodies out of the way. It wasn't the last of them, but the remaining few hesitated to get any closer, the death of their compatriots suddenly stopping them in their tracks.

Ben reached Rey's side and fell to his knees at her side. The side was bleeding, the cannon bolt had gone through her side and left a vicious gaping red wound.

Ben felt his throat catch and his hands shook as he tried to figure out what to do, he pressed his hands to her stomach and she cried out from the pressure. "Rey, hold on!"

She was starting to fade, the Force was taking her back to wherever she had been before. "Rey! Rey, where are you! I'll come for you! Rey!"

Her eyes fluttered and she reached out and clutched at his hands. And just as she closed her eyes, she flicked away. It wasn't until she was gone and Vic Elan said something that he realized that she had been holding his saber when she had disappeared. If he still had it he might have turned it on Vic Elan for her capricious loyalties. His body shuddered with dozens of untenable emotions, fear for Rey, rage at himself for letting her get hurt, rage at Vic Elan for having the audacity to WAIT to arrive.

He reached out through the Force and asked it to show him Rey, to bring him to her as it had brought her to him. But the Force was aggravatingly quiet and he had to bolster his patience to keep from calling up the rebellion then and there to ask them to check on her, wherever she was. He was actually quite certain that his mother would know where she was. Instinctively he reached out for his mom before retreating. Not yet.

"Kylo Ren, if you want to live you had best follow me. It won't be long before more credit hungry bounty hunters come for you, regardless of what you and your girlfriend have done to the others."

Ben wanted to remark that Rey wasn't his girlfriend but Vic Elan was already leaving him behind. He looked back at the spot where Rey had disappeared and stretched his hand awkwardly. The missing saber was already making him feel naked. He hadn't been without it since he had built the thing. He hoped she was well, he would sacrifice the saber just to make sure she lived, but it was out of his power now. Ben picked up Rey's staff and ran after Vic Elan.

As he chased after Vic Elan he reached out with the Force and tried to find her, further and further into the deepest recesses of the Force. There was much out there, much in the Force that he had either ignored willingly or been driven away from because of its attachments to the light. He couldn't care less now. It was all in his way to finding Rey.

Inexplicably his mind hit his mother's and he mentally jolted back, cutting off the search. He felt her out there, seeking him again, but he hid himself. Of all things to be afraid of, he wasn't ready to face her yet.

Rey felt herself being drawn back and tried to grasp Ben's hands in hope of staying but the Force pulled her away. She didn't remember what happened next, but as Chewie explained it when she didn't show up for lunch Chewie, recalling his lacking experience with Cloud City immediately asked for the city security to keep an eye out for her, called on Lando to investigate the security cameras, and didn't rest for nearly the hour it took to find her. When the did she had nearly bled out and was holding an all too familiar saber. She had been groggy and incomprehensible but kept saying that she needed to return to Ben, that he was in danger, that she had to save him. He chastised her for letting herself get caught in that situation when she had awoken and was able to explain what happened.

Chewie didn't know much about the Force, but for most of his life he had seen the people around him use and abuse it. And it appeared that the Force had something to do with Rey's predicament. He made his displeasure known to her often over the next few days.

After a short stint in a bacta tank and a few careful days of bedrest Rey was released to walk. She hadn't let the crossguard lightsaber out of her grasp the whole time. Just in case the Force brought her back to Ben she wanted to be able to give it back to him. Tied to the belt clip on the saber was a black ring, one she had recognized that had been on Snoke's finger. In the Bacta tank and during her days of bedrest she dreamed. She dreamed of the loneliness of growing up on Jakku, her hopes and fears that her parents would return for her. He dreams of being found, of being told she had been left for her safety, that they had returned now that she was strong and capable. But all that was dashed as the dreams filled with memories of being a small child, of seeing her parents, uncaring, pushing her aside like leftover worthless junk. She knew she cried in her sleep because she woke with dried, crusty tears sealing her eyelashes closed.

The last night she had dreams of her past she found herself walking down a hallway towards a lightsource. As she walked she turned to the right and saw Ben walking with her. In his hands he held the crossguard lightsaber but instead of a red hue the saber sported a pure white hue. He glanced at her and smiled as they continued to walk, she felt her hands grip something and when she faced forwards again she saw that she was carrying her double sided lightsaber. But it was a color that she never expected.

The color of her saber drew her in and she was falling deeper and deeper into a feeling, a memory, a vision of the future. There was something out there, darker even than the parts of the force she had seen that were almost black as night. At the center of it all was the diamond, in the dream she saw its creation. It wasn't just any diamond, the tall alien creatures, beautiful in their grace, took the best parts of a million kyber crystals and found a way to meld them all together. But their beauty hid a darkness, they were clearly the same species as Snoke, but they had long flowing hair, robes of gold and silver. They almost worshiped the crystal as a god, or a godhead to the living and cosmic Forces. Highly powerful, it acted as a conduit for the Force for anyone that would wield it.

Rey woke from the dream with a start and grappled with the sheets to find where she had placed Ben's saber. The little black diamond on the end was speaking to her. It was darkness, but it wasn't the darkness of evil, it was the darkness of space, the power and the brilliance of the expansive dark matter that made up everything that human eyes couldn't see. It was a darkness that let in the light, that embraced it as a lovers embraced, was part of it as one part of a whole.

In a fevered state she crawled out of the bed and nearly stepped on Chewie's foot, he grumbled startled and asked if everything was well.

"It is, I know what to do!" she cried and stumbled out of the room into the common area where she had stashed the frame of the double lightsaber.

She was the light to its darkness.

The two shards of the kyber crystal ached as she touched them and she reached into the force to speak to them with hushed whispers and gentle touches as she worked the two halves and the black diamond into the center of the blade.

It was the darkness to her light.

She felt connected to something, something so much larger than herself. The Force wasn't just her tool right now, instead she was its tool. She was doing its work and through it she felt the lines of the Force working all around her and Chewie and Cloud City and beyond. She felt through the expanse of the galaxy the minds of the people she had touched, Leia, Finn, Poe, Rose… and finally Ben.

She clipped a few more parts into place and then stood in the center of the room. Chewie watched her from the doorway of her bedroom

She held the double sided saber out, and pressed the button to activate it. Two brilliant black blades hummed from either end and she felt a sense of completion. But only a part was complete. She looked down at Ben's saber sitting on the floor where she had worked. Ben needed his saber, and he needed to make it whole again.

tbc...