—Chapter 8: Halftones—

The walk from Rey's cabin to Ben's was pleasant, and reasonably short. The doorway, such as it was, faced the lake, about a stone's throw from the nearest bank. Leaning against the doorframe, he set down his bag and looked out across the water. His eyes drifted to his left, to where Rey's cabin was, out of sight beyond the woods and sloping hillsides.

The sun would only be up for about an hour more, and he had a lot to do before dinner. He was pleased to discover that his door was, in fact, taller than Rey's, but he still had to duck slightly to avoid cracking his head on the stone arch. The layout of his house was similar to Rey's, with similar furniture in similar states of disrepair. The bed was pointless—he might as well use it for kindling.

He set his bag on the table and pulled out the couple of lanterns Rey had packed for him, as well as the cooking gear he had requested. His kitchenette was too badly decayed to use right away; he would need some time to fix broken counter struts and replace missing stones in the fire basin, so he decided to cook outside for tonight. He carried his stuff outside and set it down in the grass to find some usable rocks and firewood. Without his lightsaber, he couldn't cut firewood, so he had to settle for fallen branches and limbs that were thin enough to break off with his bare hands. After he'd gathered enough wood to get him through the evening, he collected rocks to line his makeshift campfire.

Rey had packed him an electroflint to spark the kindling. Scoffing, he realized he had a lot to teach her. He crouched on the ground, set to work arranging the stones and the wood into a decent fire pit, and then sat for a quiet moment to concentrate on the wood. Seconds later, the twigs in the pit began smoldering, and soon flames erupted from the pile. Once he had a reasonable burn going, he stood up and moved toward the canopy of trees behind his house to look for something he could turn into dinner. He managed to scrounge up a couple largish rodent-like things and some edible greens. Good enough.

He picked through the cooking gear to find the tools he would need in order to prepare the food. The table inside would provide a reasonable prep area for now, but it had gotten too dark to see very well inside, so he lit one of the lanterns and set about cleaning up the area.

He had gotten the meat skinned, cleaned, and ready to be cooked. He took it outside to roast over the fire. In the distance, he could feel Rey approaching. He looked in her direction. Other than her quarterstaff and a canteen, she didn't appear to be carrying anything. He skewered the meat and jabbed the shanks into the ground to lean over the fire, then stepped inside. There, he grabbed the pot of greens and a couple of blankets to sit on, and then returned to the doorway.

"Hi," said Rey, as she inspected his fire and skinned rodents-on-a-stick.

"Hi," said Ben. An awkward silence followed, leaving Rey feeling very exposed.

"So… what's for dinner?" asked Rey, finally, gesturing to the meat sticks.

"Rodent-things. And also some greens." He lifted the pot to show off his haul, and nodded toward the fire where the meat sticks were roasting.

"Huh." She regarded the foodstuffs, politely nodding her head. "Blankets," she observed, pointing to the bundles under his arm.

"I thought we could sit on them," said Ben.

"Perfect," said Rey, followed by another awkward silence.

"So let's sit," said Ben bluntly, and the two moved closer to the fire pit as Ben handed her one of the blankets. He unfolded his own a few times, and laid it on the ground. She set down her quarterstaff and lifted the canteen strap over her head to remove it. She laid her own blanket down a couple feet from Ben's and plunked herself upon it, staring at the fire.

"Nice fire," she remarked.

"Thank you."

It would be a little while before the meat was ready to eat, so she couldn't count on that as a distraction yet, but Rey was desperate for this to be less uncomfortable. She tried to come up with something to say that was more likely to elicit a better-than-one-sentence response from him. She considered asking him about his family, but thought it was probably too soon after Leia's death. She could ask him about his own training in the ways of Force, but that almost seemed worse. She decided to ask him about the First Order—at least that would make Poe happy. "So… what have you been up to as Supreme Leader these past couple years? I mean, specifically. I pretty much know the general stuff…" She still felt clumsy, but it was better than more silence.

"I tried to reestablish the Clone Army," he said. Progress.

"The Clone Army, like from the old Empire days? Still cloning… what was his name?"

"Jango Fett, and no. We had a stormtrooper captain who died before the battle of Crait. We had her DNA on file, and she was a perfect fit for the role: dedicated, ruthless, and built like a Wookiee. It took a little while to get the facilities up and running again, but once you're past the initial setup phase, it's a faster and more reliable way to get consistently decent soldiers."

"Yeah, Finn certainly wasn't a reliable stormtrooper." She smiled, remembering her friend, and how terribly he had performed his first job.

"Hux—my idiot general who betrayed me—was so committed to his damn conditioning methods, but that was always more trouble than it was worth."

"Besides the fact that it's terribly barbaric to steal children and brainwash them into fighting for you," she admonished sarcastically.

He looked at her. "Yes, besides that. I wonder what they're doing with that now that I'm not there anymore. I ended the practice." He looked back at the fire. "Though I don't doubt that it will be restarted, if it hasn't been already."

She was pleased to hear he had put an end to the practice that had robbed Finn and so many others of the lives they should have had. "I certainly hope they haven't gone back to doing that. For what it's worth, a Clone Army would've been a good change, all things considered. I mean, if you can't get a volunteer army," she added with a shrug.

"Mm," he agreed. He turned the spits to cook the back side of the meat. "I assume the Resistance was already aware of most of that? Surely your spies must have heard something..."

Rey took it as a rhetorical question, and didn't say anything in response. Though reports of child abductions had certainly declined in the last two years, she didn't know for certain whether or not they had completely stopped. She guessed she had taken it somewhat for granted that, in this case, at least, no news certainly was good news. Regarding a cloning facility out there somewhere, she definitely hadn't heard anything about that.

"Ben? Are—are you stronger than you used to be? You seem… I don't know, like you have more control than you used to." She looked at him, and he met her gaze. "You were a little erratic before," she added quietly.

He chuckled as he looked back at the fire. "Possibly. Probably. Force mapping—that's what I taught you today—is something I'd never done before I got here."

"You taught yourself to do that while convalescing from a near-death experience?" She turned to him with amazement.

"'Near death' is an exaggeration—'epic ass-beating', maybe." He smiled to himself. It felt odd, talking like this. So unlike the person he was, the person he had been. He wasn't sure that he liked it, but he didn't not like it. He looked at her. "I lost a lot of blood and was unconscious for a while. I could probably have remained like that for another couple hours before actually dying," he said. "Don't be so dramatic."

"Yeah, whatever, tough guy." She played into his joke about his situation, smiling back. She found herself feeling grateful that the atmosphere seemed to have relaxed a little, but that it had turned toward levity was entirely unexpected.

"Anyway," he continued, "You're right, I was weaker before. Hux might have been a tremendous pain in the ass, but he made an observation that helped me come to an important realization—though I'm sure the significance of it was totally lost on him." He paused, taking a breath. "I was conflicted." He looked at her again. "You said it yourself. I felt the pull to the light. But I had been fighting so hard to commit to the path I had chosen that I wouldn't allow myself to access it, and that made me weak. Broken."

She wasn't sure how to respond to this revelation. "Does… that mean you're on the side of the light now?" she asked.

"No, Rey… I don't think I can ever be on the light side." He turned back to the fire. "But I can't be on the dark side either."

Rey was silent, giving him space to collect his thoughts.

"...And I believe that is why I'm stronger," he said, still putting it all together in his own mind even as the words were coming out of his mouth.

Luke had cautioned her about straying too close to the darkness—that to flirt with it at all was to fall prey to its temptations, to become lost in it. Ben was suggesting that not only could you flirt with it and not be consumed by it, but that this could be the wisest option. Intellectually, she wasn't quite sure what to make of that.

"I was manipulated by Snoke, that much had already become clear to me by the time I killed him in the throne room. But he had been in my head for such a long time, even back when I was training with Luke, offering me power and influence. That if I chose to embrace that power I would have a place with him. When my uncle tried to kill me, that seemed like my best option."

"He wasn't going to kill you, you know," said Rey softly, coming to Luke's defense.

"You can't really know that. And I certainly didn't know it then. I'm not even sure I know that now." He took a slow breath. "Anyway, that was what tipped the scales for me. Made me choose darkness over the light."

"So where are you now? In the middle? Explain to me why that isn't just a different kind of conflict. After all, wars don't resolve themselves; you have to pick a side and fight hard."

"Maybe wars happen because people are presented with a binary choice."

Rey's jaw dropped slightly, and Ben tried to read her facial expression—she seemed stunned. He couldn't be sure if it was regret, embarrassment, disappointment, or something else entirely that he saw on her face. Searching her feelings, he could glean only a general sense of unease. She wasn't looking him in the eyes anymore. He thought she looked troubled.

He was worried he'd said something wrong. He thought maybe if he explained himself further it would help. Sitting up a little straighter, with more urgency in his tone, he continued. "Rey, what are people like?"

She met his eyes once more, but didn't fully comprehend the question. Was he changing the subject? "What do you mean?"

"I mean, describe people. What are your friends like?"

She tipped her head to the side, thinking of Finn. "Well, they're kind, dedicated, funny, selfless… impulsive at times…" Then her thoughts drifted to Poe. "They can also be stubborn, fearful, and pushy, too, but their intentions are good. All my friends are different, but they're all wonderful," she said affectionately.

"Exactly, they're different. There can't be just one way to be that's acceptable, or all your friends would be the same. There has to be more to what is allowable, what is correct."

He paused to take a breath, and hoped the relevance of his question would soon be apparent—he hoped he had the words for what he was trying to convey. "Even individuals themselves can change. Normal people, at various times, exhibit aspects of both light and dark. One person can be loving and gentle one day, and irate and jealous the next. We don't overly concern ourselves with it, because we think of that as normal. Am I making sense so far?"

"Yes," she nodded.

"Now tell me, what are Jedi like?"

"Well, I only knew the one…" she began, smiling, "He was funny, kind at heart, though with a grim demeanor. Well-intentioned… but also somewhat austere, controlled, and occasionally frustratingly passive," she concluded. Her smile had lost some of its luster.

"I knew more than just the one. They're so one-dimensionally good that they lack drive, passion, and depth—the contentment they seek is a sedative," he said, adding his own interpretation to what she was saying. He turned to her, staring hard into her eyes. "In their attempt to connect to the light side of the Force, they lose the parts of themselves that make them human. All the breadth and dimension that make people like your friends special to you is given up in favor of one disposition. The side that they picked… is incomplete." There was fire in his eyes as he spoke. "I think… choosing a side is a mistake," he added, with resolve.

Rey looked at him tentatively, under her downcast brows—but she was looking at him. She was seeing him. In his own mind, the ideas he was trying to get across felt disorganized—he hoped the words he had chosen to communicate them to her were adequate. He needed her to understand the point he was trying to make.

He felt like he was making headway, so he kept going. "I think this is what was meant by balance. For thousands of years, the Jedi have sought to bring balance to the Force, but the Force doesn't need to be balanced, it already is balanced, and they're screwing it up by trying to tip it constantly in their direction. Darkness just rises to meet the light—"

"—and we're left with war, as one side tries ineffectually to envelop the other," added Rey, contemplating the legacy of the Jedi, the Empire, the Republic of old, the First Order, and the Resistance.

"War…" he lamented. "Because of dogmatic adherence to the rightness of one side over the other. You can't achieve balance this way. The galaxy will remain a cauldron of light and darkness for eternity, just as it was meant to be, as complex and three-dimensional as the individuals within it. The folly is in trying to take a side. We're all both. Light and dark. All of us."

Rey swallowed and took a long, slow breath, pondering everything he'd said. How had they even started talking about this? It had started with… Hux. Hux had said Ben was conflicted. Conflicted about… probably not about the Force, but regardless of Hux's intended meaning, it appeared to Rey that that had been Ben's big takeaway from that encounter. "So that was what Hux helped you realize? That you're both?"

"Shit! Our dinner is burning," said Ben with a start. He pulled the skewers out of the ground and held them up, examining the blackened side. "My plan had been to make a meat stew with the greens, but these are already overdone."

Rey was grateful for the sudden interruption. She needed time to process everything, and besides, with all that conversation, she had forgotten why she had come there in the first place—they were having dinner. Now that the spell she'd been under was broken, she realized just how hungry she had become.

"Let's just eat them off the sticks—stew sounds messy anyway, and I'm starving." She reached for one of the skewers, and bit into the charred steak. "It's perfectly tasty," she said reassuringly.

Ben shrugged, grimacing, and tore into his own rodent-on-a-stick. His expression improved as he chewed the seared flesh. "Not bad, actually. Better than field rations, certainly."

"I lived my entire life preparing field rations quite happily, thank you," said Rey.

"There's no way you were happy," he replied impassively.

Rey looked into the fire, considering his offhanded remark, then turned back to him and said, "No, I really wasn't. Getting off that ball of dirt was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. It kickstarted my life."

"You're welcome," he said, between bites of food.

They chewed their food in silence, picking at the pot full of dry greens as they went. The greens had a smooth flavor, almost buttery, and the meat had a full, rich flavor and surprisingly moist texture, in spite of being burned on one side—the bit of char actually gave dimension to the flavor.

"I need a little more time to consider your light-side/dark-side theory, but you were definitely right that this is better than field rations."

"You are nothing if not stubborn. But I'll take what I can get."

Though they finished their meal without talking, Rey realized it was no longer uncomfortable.

Night had fully descended upon them, and the campfire was the only light there was. Rey jumped in realization, "Uh oh, I didn't think to bring a lantern. It's going to be a slow walk back."

"Just take one of mine. I can manage with just the one for tonight. I assume you can find your way." It wasn't a question.

"Do you still need to do any cleanup in there before it's ready to sleep in? My place was a mess, I'm still not finished with it. I could help you with that, if you're too tired to do it on your own."

"No, it's fine. The bed is a joke anyway. I'll just toss my bedroll on the ground out here next to the fire and leave the house situation for tomorrow," he said.

"Okay then." She took a few swigs from her canteen, and handed it to him to drink from as she stared at the fire for a little bit.

He wiped a drop of water from his lips as he handed back her canteen, then stood up and went inside. He emerged a moment later with his bedroll. "I'm going to bed."

"Oh. Okay." She felt weird staying there if he was going to be trying to sleep, so she stood up and started refolding the blanket she'd been sitting on.

"You don't have to leave right away," he offered, but she continued preparing to depart.

"No, I should go. I need some rest too. Can I take that lantern there?" she asked, gesturing to the lantern on the ground near the arrangement of cooking gear he'd been sifting through earlier.

"Sure." He was removing his cloak to use as an extra blanket, and then laid down along the full length of his bedroll. His feet were in the grass.

She snatched up the lantern, ignited it, and collected her quarterstaff and canteen. "So I'll see you in the morning?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'll come to you, so stay put," he instructed, fluffing up his pillow.

"Okay, so I'll just wait for you then. Good night."

"Good night," he replied.

During the walk back, she replayed the events of the day over and over in her mind. It all seemed so surreal. Her bedroll and a few other basic things had been prepared before leaving for dinner, so all she had to do to get ready for bed was to kick off her boots. She climbed under the blankets and switched off the lantern. Alone in her bed, the sounds of the forest hummed around her, and she thought about her lesson in Force mapping. She pushed out with her mind, looking through the forest and field, retracing her steps back to the base. It was so much easier than it had been earlier.

She thought she detected Finn's Force signature, but he wasn't in his quarters, so she was unsure it was actually him. She made a mental note to pay more attention to each person's Force signature the next time she saw them. She wandered back to where she was, and then back to Ben at the campfire. Living forces flurried through the air above the fire, making its shape plain, and next to it, she saw Ben, on his back, staring up at the sky, one hand on his abdomen and the other under his head.

Good night again, she felt him say. And, like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar, she instantly retracted herself and tried to pretend she'd never been there at all.

Poe had been monitoring the signal given off by the communicator whenever he'd had a spare moment to himself. Throughout the day, he had felt like he was being pulled in fifteen different directions by all the different people he had to report to, none of whom seemed to be on the same page. He could tell the decision to allow Kylo Ren to leave the base with Rey had not been made with unanimous consent, and now he felt beholden to everyone to deliver results—some payoff on this gamble. Seeing Rey's beacon in motion had at least given him some assurance that their hopes hadn't been immediately dashed.

He was surprised by how linear their route out of the base had been, like they knew exactly where they had been going. Every time he had seen her movements cease, his pulse had quickened with anxiety, only returning to normal once he could see that she was still able to move. It would be a huge blow to the Resistance if this failed. But for Poe, it would be even worse.

He had seen her stop for long periods of time twice. Once, at a location due north of the base, and again somewhere northwest of that. By the time Poe was finally released from his obligations for the day, the signal had started moving again, back to the location due north. In the morning he would contact her, but in the meantime, all he could do was watch the signal blink out her location, and wonder where she was.