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

Chapter 27: He's Going the Distance

  A note from your humble author: Time to hold onto your butts! 

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She was speechless.

She had lived a very sheltered life. She wasn't even sure what love was at first, and the concept of marriage seemed particularly alien to her. Even though she didn't quite understand all of the implications of what marriage meant, she did know that it meant 'to belong to someone', presumably for forever.

The concept of 'belonging' had been something she had always ached for. She had grown up starving for kindness, for compassion, for love. She had known loneliness so intense it had physically ached her. The friends she made since leaving Jakku, made her happy, and she did love them, but Ben, Ben was different.

He was the completion of her soul. He was home. Being with him was belonging.

She didn't know what the future held for either of them. Would they find and be able to defeat Snoke? Would they live to see the end of the war? What then? But somehow none of that mattered; the only thing that mattered was that they could continue to face each day of their lives, together. Nobody had ever wanted her before, and now he was offering to want her for the rest of her life.

He watched as various expressions cascaded over her face, holding his breath as he waited, praying to the force that she would agree to complete him. He was mortified when she started crying.

"Rey?" he asked, but she simply covered her face with her hands and sobbed loudly. He felt devastated. He had done something wrong!

"Rey, please, I'm sorry. It's just that I love you so much...I...I thought wanted to be with me..."

Finally between gasping sobs she managed to collect herself enough to speak again.

"You...you want me?"

"Yes, Rey."

"Forever?"

"Yes, absolutely!"

"Okay," she said.

He felt a fearful confusion grip him.

"You...you'll marry me?" he dared to ask again.

"Yes, I will," she stated more plainly, as she could sense his lack of belief though their bond.

Just when he though his heart couldn't race any faster, he felt a tidal wave of exhilaration come over him as he finally managed to absorb that she wanted him, she really wanted him, a broken, damaged, and tainted creature, hardly worthy of forgiveness or compassion, yet alone love. He pounced on her mouth and kissed her as deeply as he could, then picked her up and spun her around.

She was nearly dizzy by the time he put her down, but she didn't care.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small object that glittered in the fading sunlight.

"I've never done this before," he stated the obvious as he clasped her hand and slid a small ring onto her finger. It was made of a shining white metal and a flat green stone that took on different hues depending on which way her hand turned. "This belonged to my grandmother, Breha Organa, she was the Queen of Alderaan."

Her eyes shot open in shock. "Oh, Ben, I can't accept such a gift!" she argued. Feeling herself too low-born to wear the heirloom of royalty. It stung a little to remind her, that he was the son of a princess, and she was just a poor desert scavenger - a nobody.

He could sense her misgivings over their bond.

He gently lifted her chin and held her eyes with his. "Rey, it's I, who am not good enough. The fact that you would have someone like me at all...it's more than I deserve. Mother gave this to me before we left Takodana, with her blessings," he assured, as he leaned down to place one more gentle kiss on her warm lips.