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

Chapter 28: The Watcher

Ben was nearly out of breath by the time he reached the pavilion. He found Rey standing alone, beside her, the fallen body of Ereus Ren. Everyone else had fled the scene.

"Rey?" he asked as he rushed to her.

She didn't seem to see him at first, and her eyes were moist with unshed tears.

"Rey, are you all right?" he asked as he grabbed her to him.

"Oh, Ben. I missed up! I'm sorry!" she said as she buried her face in his chest.

"Rey, did he hurt you?" he asked, as he gently lifted her chin so that she would look him in the eye.

"No. No, I'm fine. It's not that. I messed up; I killed him before I searched his mind. Now we'll never know where to find Aldo Ren. I was just so angry! I wanted to wait for you, but I couldn't! Ben, he was going to kill those children! The force-sensitive children we saw yesterday, they were here, though I don't know where they are now."

"Is that why you blocked me?"

"You had to finish it, Ben. You had to! I'm sorry!"

Ben knew if they could have fought Ereus Ren together they probably would have had greater success at extracting the information they needed, but there was no helping it.

He leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. "You did what you had to do, Rey. Don't apologize! Another Knight of Ren is slain, we may not know where Aldo and Snoke are, but eventually we will find them, and we will hunt them down together."

She didn't feel any better. Getting into the mind of Ereus Ren was their best lead to eventually hunting down Snoke, and now that hope was gone. Every day that the war raged on, more lives would be lost.

He could feel her anguish through their bond and it clawed into the very soul of him.

"I failed you, Rey, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have taken that bet, I should have just slit that damn Hutt's throat the moment he looked at you."

"Don't, Ben. We had no way of knowing how things would turn out."

They left the arena and made their way back to Mos Espa. They stopped in the market to buy Rey another pair of goggles to wear on their long trek over the dunes back to Mos Eisley. The day was coming to a close and they were both exhausted. They decided to leave in the morning. They had little to fear with Ereus Ren gone.

The next morning when Rey awoke she was surprised to find that Ben was missing. When she heard a knock at the door she found a staff member had brought two breakfasts. Ben must have ordered them before he left, so she assumed he meant to return quickly. She could sense that wherever he was, he wasn't in any distress.

She wanted to wait for Ben to return but after a while she gave in to her hunger and ate her food alone by the window. Eventually she thought she saw him drive up in a convertible speeder.

I'm here, Rey.

He assured her through their bond, and she immediately ran outside to greet him.

"Your breakfast is cold...what's this?" she asked, referring to the speeder he had pulled up in.

"I went back to the arena this morning, remember, I did place that wager for Rando. He'd never forgive me if I left his winnings behind," he said as he unlocked and opened the trunk of the speeder, and Rey was shocked to see it was half filled with credits, more than she had ever seen in her life, and clearly more than they would have been able to return with on their speeder bike.

"I was able to rent this speeder while I was out. We can ditch the bike here."

"Absolutely not!" she argued. "That's our speeder bike! Besides, you asked to marry me the day we rode it together, we can't just leave it," she begged, and Ben was shocked that she was so quick to get sentimental, but he wouldn't dare deny her.