InsaneJournal

There was some strength in knowing that you could do something-- if you needed to: that you had done the thing in question at one choice juncture and therefore you could do it again.

But there was only so much strength that could be drawn from that as Ren knew that moments mattered, individual decisions mattered, and continuing to make the correct one wasn't a guarantee. It was never a guarantee. For months he'd wondered what would happen if Eliot was taken back by the portal. Then he'd added Fen into that wondering as well. Would he be able to be who he had been with them here, if they were gone? Would he be able to be a good father to Fray if Eliot wasn't here, or a parent in general? And with the thought of a baby on the way - one who was very nearly here really - that added another element to the thoughts.

The dreams had started with him successfully navigating those things. And he could believe that now more easily than he'd ever been able to do so before. He'd been willing to give up his own life to help save Rey. The notion that he could act unselfishly, something he'd wanted to believe in before but had sometimes struggled with knowing for certain that he could do, was no longer as foreign as it once had been. And then had come the slips and failures.

And his memories had been given so many to choose from. They had pulled themselves into his dream, things he'd done while he'd carried the name Kylo Ren at home, twisting with Fray and Fen and Eliot and friends from here, like one of the gnarled trees that had started growing due to Maleficent's powers. The good and the bad swirled together into something that felt twisted and impossible to unwind. And he'd woke up, sweating, closing his eyes, naming the fucking fear that the nightmare had grown and then quietly taking his brain through the meditation process that was a strange mixture of things Leia had taught him and things Luke had, and things he'd discovered here that had nothing to do with the Force, but calmed.

The nightmares had subsided with Maleficent's disappearance, a fact of which Ren was grateful, but the memories lingered as he checked stock early on Sunday morning at the shop. With Remus gone, Ren had been doing more of this, leading him to realize that he probably needed to figure out how to replace the wizard, and probably before Fen gave birth. One thing he felt certain of, was that the fears didn't need to be buried so much as faced head on. It was something that the past few years, whether here or at home, seemed to have borne out. If he acknowledged the thing he was afraid of, he gave it less power, when he gave it less power, it seemed less likely of overwhelming the choice he wanted to make. How much of his life had he spent afraid that he couldn't go home, and how much of his life at home, had he wasted in that line?

In the hours before the Prettiest Star had been about to sink into a Black Hole he'd seen himself having nothing much to lose, and so he'd made Eliot his confessor even though he'd feared being rejected when Eliot knew the truth. But getting it out had mattered more. It was the first time he'd named the fear and taken the risk not to gain glory, or control of a fleet, but to have someone who knew him.

A box of beans from South America was moved, and he made a note to order more.

One action in front of another felt like an odd way to approach life. One moment, one choice, and keep making them. It was an odd irony that the more connected he was with Eliot and Fen the easier it was to make them correctly, and yet the more he felt he had to lose if he messed something up. And with a baby - maybe one who was Force sensitive - he did fear messing it up somehow losing him or her even if there shouldn't be risks here in Tumbleweed: Not like at home.

Maleficent hadn't created the nightmares; she'd only pulled to the surface what was already there, and Ren knew that. He'd always felt that he had to fear fear. If you were afraid you weren't a good Jedi and he'd almost always been afraid. And maybe, he supposed, maybe that was true. Maybe the Jedi had discovered some magic way to turn off fear and not be impacted by it, but more and more he wondered if that was true. And even if feeling fear made him a bad Jedi, being a bad Jedi didn't make him a bad person. A lesson that it felt as if it'd taken him too long and too many deep mistakes to realize. But fear would come, and maybe the truth was that what really mattered was not some emotionless pushing through to the other side, but not letting that fear control what you believed.

It felt obvious.
Like he should have always known.
But maybe should was just another word for shame in this context.
And one thing he'd learned about himself was that shame was the enemy of him being able to make any sort of amends.

He stood up, picked up the tablet he'd been making notes on and headed for the front counter. The back door opened and he heard the sound of one of the barista's coming in. He switched the charities on the dueling drinks, and then turned to the black board behind him. In careful script he wrote out a remembered saying from his childhood. 'Fear not for the future, weep not for the past'.

As he finished, he stepped back, his eyes falling on the business cards, 'owned by Ren Solo'. He reached over and grabbed them: It was time to order new ones.