Meet Me in the Grey (Reylo fanfiction) (COMPLETED)

Chapter 1: The Predator

The rights to Star Wars belong to its respective creators. I get no dough doin this! This is going to be a Reylo. If you don't like Reylos you're in the wrong place. If you don't like occasional smutty lemon in your fic, you're in the wrong place. Just sayin now, there will be lemons (starting around chapter 10 and several more after that). It starts as a slow-burn romance, but eventually builds to a full plot romance/angst/action/adventure storyline involving the full Star Wars cast. So if you like Star Wars Reylo fanfics that feel like they might actually take place in the Star Wars universe, you might like this.

This is mostly going to follow the movies because I freely admit I'm not up on most of the EU stuff. Specifically after the events of TFA. I love reviews though - FEED ME!

Also: Yes I know I'm using the English spelling of Grey. I dunno why, I just like it that way better!

I originally started posting this on FFnet, and later on AO3, but I wanted to see what kind of audience I could reach here.

As you can tell I have no cover art for this story. If any of you who have any artistic talent would like to make a cover art for me, I would greatly appreciate it and would give you full credit for it. It wouldn't even have to be elaborate just something quick and easy whipped together in Photoshop would be appreciated.

UPDATE UPON COMPLETION!: This story is now complete. Please continue to leave feedback, even if you find this story a long time after its original posting or completion, because I'll still see feedback, and I'll still greatly appreciate it. Please bear in mind, this story was written and completed after episode VII, but before episode VIII, so if Episode VIII goes completely left field from anything I've written here, then just consider this as way alternate universe.

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He felt it in the force and a shiver ran down his spine. There had indeed been an awakening and it unnerved him.

The first time he saw her, he could sense the power pulsing from her; one so small, so weak, so unassuming, so very frightened. He loved being feared, being feared was being powerful, being powerful was being in control. Even though he felt that raw power within her, he felt exhilarated because he was in control, dominant, a master, and he loved it.

Having power over peons was nothing. Pathetic, weak, non-force-sensitive's, meant little to him; their lives as insignificant as so many insects to be crushed underfoot.

And then she pushed him. Nobody had ever pushed against him, nobody had ever dared to defy, to challenge, but she did. She rent into the very soul of him. She cut ruthlessly, she cut deep. She saw things he meant no one to ever see, felt things within him that no one else was ever meant to feel. She saw the festering wounds that never healed, and the pain. The shameful pain.

By the time he had pulled back it was too late, even though she didn't know it at the time, she had left a piece of herself in his mind, and a part of him had been left inside of her, a bond.

He felt her horror as his saber pierced his father's heart, her agony, her sadness, her pain, and he wondered if she could feel him too. If she really understood what his action had cost him. He feared that she alone knew the truth; that in that moment he had passed the Supreme Leader's test, and yet utterly failed it at the same time. The light had not entirely been snuffed out.

She had seen too many of his failings now, he would stop it, he would regain control. He reached for her, as their sabers clashed, as they strained for dominance against a snowy precipice, as his very life's blood trailed into the snow.

"You need a teacher!"

He needed her. He needed her to make him feel powerful, to make him feel in control. He needed her because as she had felt his loneliness, he too, had felt hers. They were the same. The force made no mistakes. She had been placed in his path for a reason. She was meant to belong to him. He was meant to possess her. He was meant to show her the way, he could feel it!

And then she rejected him.

His parents had rejected him. His uncle had rejected him. The fellow padawans of his youth had rejected him. The only person who had ever really wanted him was the Supreme Leader, but it was hard to think about that with Han Solo's words so freshly ringing in his ears.

He's just using you!

And then she left him alone - his face slashed open, bleeding, dying. She should have finished what she started. She should have ended his pain, but as the world split open she never got that chance. Would she have finished it? Death was favorable to defeat, to dishonor, to shame. She had done worse to him than she ever could have if she had just pierced his heart with her saber.

Rejected! Defeated! Humiliated! Shamed! Shamed before her, shamed before the smug general, shamed before his master as he pleaded for forgiveness as the waves of torture threatened to tear him apart. Oh, he had indeed been punished for his failure. He wondered if she knew just how much he had had to pay for his defeat that night. Did she feel him scream in agony as Snoke ripped into him, the way he felt her joy at being reunited with her scum resistance friends? Did she know what she had done?

At first he cursed this bond. He cursed that she could perhaps feel all of his shortcomings, all of his suffering, but he would gain control again. He would have her know fear again, and he would use their connection to achieve it. She could run to Skywalker, she could hide, but he would hunt her to the ends of the galaxy. He would not be denied again.