For Rey

[startarebellion]

Luke was gone. He'd been gone for a while now but for some reason Galen had been hoping that Luke would come back. He told himself that it was because Rey needed to Luke to teacher her but that was only part of it. Mara could train Jade if it came to that. The truth was that Galen had liked the Jedi and this place wouldn't be as pleasant now that Luke was gone.

Galen wasn't sure what to do with that, how to process it. He'd never really missed anyone like that before. The closest thing he had was losing Proxy and even that was different. That had been worse and at the time he'd had the Dark Side to help him channel all his anger and rage. This was new.

So he headed to the Millennium Falcon to see Rey. He didn't know if she would be able to help him understand how he felt or what to do but he did know that things always felt better when he was around Rey. At the very least seeing her would cheer him up a little.

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[tobereckoned]

She had felt it in the Force and Rey had wished, in that instant, that she'd never had this gift. Why had she been given a chance to learn the secrets of the Force only so that it let her feel someone's departure. Luke was gone and she didn't need need to go to where he lived to see it. She knew already because of what he'd taught her.

The Force also told her that someone was approaching and probing further told her it was Galen, which meant he must know too.

Not bothering to put on a smile, Rey lowered the steps to come out and see him.

"You know, then?"

[startarebellion]

Even though Galen could feel Rey through the Force he felt better about seeing her in person. There was no reason for her to disappear when Luke did but he had still been worried that she would. Seeing her though made him almost smile. Her serious expression stopped him short though.

"He's gone," Galen said with a nod. "Not dead though. Just gone back home."

[tobereckoned]

"I felt it," Rey said and she knew Galen would understand. Her training didn't span years like Luke's or Galen's but it was strong enough to know what the absence of someone felt like in the Force. Luke was gone, returned to his own time and probably doomed to see his work come undone at the hands of Kylo Ren.

"Right now, I wish I didn't understand the Force so I didn't have to feel this." It hurt in a way she had never thought it could.

[startarebellion]

Galen wished that he could help her with this but pain was too familiar for him to be bothered too much by it. He wasn't even sure if he wished Luke was back here other than the fact that his sort-of-wife and child. That hurt the most though, to think that Luke's child wouldn't know him.

"I'm sorry," he said, although he didn't really think that would be much comfort. He didn't know what he could do though. Making people feel better wasn't really something he had experience with.

[tobereckoned]

"Don't apologize for what you haven't done." And if he had had something to do with it, then lying and pretending otherwise meant that that was the least of the apologies he owed.

A moment passed where she didn't know what to do or say before Rey defaulted to the comforts she knew. Reaching up, she grabbed a duffle bag that clanked and clattered, full of scrap and salvaged bits. "I'm going to build something," she said, because if they were going to cope with this void, she needed to make something.

[startarebellion]

"You can be sorry something happened without being the one who caused it," Galen pointed out, although this was definitely the last time he told her that he was sorry in that context. If he had stopped to think about it he probably would have realized that she was just frustrated in general and it wasn't necessarily anything personal. Stopping to think about the feelings of others wasn't really his strong suit though.

And he wasn't sure if her comment about needing to build something was an offer to join him or a dismissal so Galen decided to follow after her. If he guessed wrong she'd let him know but he'd rather take a chance on the fact that she didn't want him around.

[tobereckoned]

It was true but that didn't change the distinct sense of wrongness that hung in the air without Luke Skywalker here. Galen meant it as consolation but Rey didn't feel consoled. Mostly, she just felt tired and lonely so that when Galen followed she was glad. Rey wasn't sure she'd be able to bear it if someone else disappeared back to their galaxy.

Spreading out a blanket, Rey laid out the scraps methodically, glancing at Galen for his input. It was a collection of oddments cadged from dumpsters, broken apart from unsalvageable appliances, ready to be made into something else.

"Well."

[startarebellion]

"Well what?" Galen said, looking from Rey to the garbage and back. He could fix or repair things just fine but he wasn't an inventor, no matter what he had told Tony. He could tell what a few of the things used to be but he didn't know what they could become. He wasn't that creative.

"You can't make a lightsaber out of that and you could almost make an explosive. That's about all I know how to make."

[tobereckoned]

"How would I make a lightsaber, then?" Rey asked, because she honestly hadn't a clue. It was not something that had seemed imperative while Luke had had his lightsaber and Rey had been in possession of Anakin's. As it was, she tried not to use it much still; it was a flashy weapon that drew too much attention.

Listening for Galen's answer, Rey found the motor of what had once been a food processor, turning it this way and that.

[startarebellion]

"Here, let me show you mine," Galen said, unclipping it from his belt and letting it float between them in the air. Letting the Force guide him he began to disassemble it with the Force, breaking it down into the individual components so they hung in the air between them.

"You're going to start with something to contain the components of the hilt. Metal or something as hard. Then a power cell, modulation circuit, energy gate, blade emitter shroud, the emitter matrix, some type of activator, and a kyber crystal," he said, moving each part as he talked about them. They were all things she was probably familiar with other than the crystal and emitter shroud.

[tobereckoned]

Rey had seen Galen's control before but it was one thing to see him build a house. It was something else to use that same precision of power on something so small and so important as a lightsaber. Each component hovered obediently in place until he called it forward. She was so amazed by his precision that she almost forgot to register what he was showing her.

"Are they always swords?" she asked, pondering her own lightsaber strapped to her hip as well as the folding staff she'd built a few weeks before.

"I stopped a boy from falling down on a playground, with the Force and I thought I had been doing quite decently."

[startarebellion]

"No. Double bladed lightsabers that are staves aren't uncommon. Sometimes they're two sabers that can combine into one," Galen said. He had fought training simulations against opponents like that and faced a few non-Jedi opponents as well. It might be something that Rey would be more comfortable with considering the staff she had.

"I think that's pretty good for long you've been training and the type of training you've been doing."

[tobereckoned]

"Staves?" Rey asked, perking a little. She put aside the mutilated food processor and took the expanding staff from her back. Carefully pointing it so neither would get hit, she pressed the button that extended both ends. "So I could make a lightsaber that's a staff? Like this?"

It was maybe a little too excited, too eager, but she couldn't help her curiosity.

[startarebellion]

"You could. You could even make one with a longer handle and shorter blades," he said with a nod. Galen made a mental note to give her a rough parts list of what she would need for the staff. As simple as a concept it was it still wasn't easy to build. And only someone using the Force could do it. "You'd have to practice your fine control of the Force first. It takes months to build properly and you have to use the Force to tell when the crystal is aligned properly."

[tobereckoned]

It made sense and Rey pondered the finesse that Galen had shown all over again. Her knowledge of mechanics, she would guess, were comparable to some of the best pilots. If all there was to making a lightsaber was pieces being welded together, anyone could have one.

"Then I'll need to train more," she said.

[startarebellion]

The way she said it so matter-of-fact made Galen laugh. It wasn't really all that funny, maybe not to anyone but him, but she was just so practical and no-nonsense about it it was funny. He liked how sensible she was about things.

"You can come train with me anytime you want," he told her, then realized how dumb that offer was since it assumed she wanted or needed to practice with him.

[tobereckoned]

"I'd like that," Rey said, nodding to him. She still didn't know if she was a Jedi, if that was even what she wanted to become. All she knew was that she wanted someone who could teach her the ways of the Force and prevent her from becoming like Kylo Ren. "If you don't mind having me around."

[startarebellion]

Galen wanted to say that he preferred having her around. That having her around was better than being away from her, but he didn't know how to say that without it sounding ridiculous or creepy or just not right. She'd probably get bothered by it.

"Wouldn't have offered if I didn't mean it," Galen promised. "I'm just sorry if I end up being a terrible training partner."

[tobereckoned]

Rey shook her head, somehow a little bit bothered by the self-deprecation. "I want to learn as much as I can from everyone I can. " And she'd come to trust Galen.

"Could you show me how to fight with a lightsaber? Properly, sometime?"

[startarebellion]

"I'll just have to come up with different ways to teach you the same concepts than how I learned them," Galen said. He wasn't sure that Vader's training techniques would be very good for teaching the Light Side of the Force. The fact that she wanted to learn was good.

"I will. Maybe we can build you an electrostaff for you to train with until you can build your own lightsaber staff."