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

Chapter 18: Masked Deceptions

A note from your humble author: Oh my god. I am so so sorry. Rando?!...I can't believe I named him Rando! What the hell was I thinking? I kept telling myself, god, no, don't use that – pick any other name! But when it came time to write this character I just couldn't shake it – so I stuck with Rando. Worst. Name. Ever.  

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He seemed to be developing a quick mastery of the path between fear and courage, which didn't surprise her. If he was afraid of anything, it was being a coward. He had stared death in the face so many times it had lost all meaning to him. The only fear he seemed to truly struggle with was the fear of losing her. It was the one fear he could not shake. Fearing the loss of an attachment was why the Jedi code discouraged such relationships. The loss of someone you cared for, someone you loved, could drive a person mad, and open a path to the darkness. There were no safe paths for vengeance, not even for a Grey.

You could kill to save your own life, in an act of self defense. You could kill to save the lives of others. But killing for vengeance was dangerous, and she was trying her best to explain it to Ben as they spent another day working together on the Grey path aboard the Millennium Falcon.

"So if someone murdered you, I would not be able to seek vengeance?" he asked, clearly frustrated.

"When I murdered that doctor who had tortured you, I did it because he had hurt you, and I wanted to make him pay for it. That was my intention at the time, that was what was burning in my heart, and I could feel the darkness consuming me. But, if I had not felt that burn of vengeance within me, if I had just killed him to stop him from torturing others, and acted out of consideration for all the others who could ever be harmed by his hand in the future, the darkness would not have gripped me as it did. If he had killed you, my killing him would not have brought you back from the dead, it would have done no good, just like killing him didn't undo the pain he had put you through. The path between the light and darkness is a path of balance, of give and take. Taking a life does not give you back anything, unless you are doing it with the intent to prevent more harm in the future."

"What if someone was once a murderer and changed their ways? There would be no future lives to protect only past crimes yet to be punished."

She could sense he was somewhat including himself in this hypothetical question. "There are many ways to make someone pay for their crimes. Justice and vengeance aren't always the same thing. It doesn't necessarily always have to be an eye for an eye. If the murderer has truly amended his ways, it would be wrong to strike them down with hatred in your heart. It would not bring back the dead. For example, my parents; I know one of the Knights of Ren murdered them, but I don't know which one, for all I know it could have been the one I've already killed. I know I must destroy the Knights of Ren because they continue to hunt and murder force sensitive's. They would destroy us. If I were to strike down a Knight of Ren with the intent to protect us, or future lives, then the darkness would not consume me, but if I strike them down thinking of my parents who were taken from me, then my heart would not be in the right place. The balance for death must be life, preserving life must be my intent, and my only intent. I must set my personal grudge aside, no matter how hard that might be."

She could feel the conflict within him again, the fear and doubt.

"If someone took you from me, I don't think I could set aside such a grudge. I can't do that!" he confessed.

She sighed and folded her hands in her lap as she sat cross-legged facing him on the floor. Whether she lived or died she did not want him to fall into the darkness again, and she knew for him that was a very real possibility.

"Ben, some day you may be faced with that dilemma. Snoke wants me dead, whether by his hand or by one of his Knights of Ren, I could die..."

"I won't let that happen!" he argued.