What Carolina said to Tucker in the season finale really stood out to me. And I couldn't help but think of what someone else might think after hearing her.

UPDATE: Jesus, the tenses in here were a mess. I need to make myself do a better read-through before posting.

UPDATE 2: Big thanks to my Editor who took a look and fixed all the remaining problems!

"He's a killer!" Tucker yelled as he loomed menacingly over Temple, head turning only slightly to glare through his visor at Carolina.

"And so are we! And we're a different sort, Tucker. We only fight and take lives when we have to. And you don't have to this time."

Carolina's passionate retort bounced through Grif's head, echoing through the deep canyon of guilt and shame that had grown in the months after the others left. We're a different sort, Tucker. A different sort of… of killer.

Across the room, Temple clattered noisily onto the ground as Tucker slammed the grip of his sword into his head in disgust. "Dickhead," he muttered under his breath, turning away from the instigator of all their most recent troubles.

While the Blues restrained the living (Temple, Cronut, Bucky, a handful of zealots), the Reds dealt with the dead. Stomach twisting, Grif helped Sarge and Simmons pile the bodies. Donut, meanwhile, chattered happily with Doc as the medic worriedly checked him over for any immediate side effects from the energy the machine had expelled.

As they tossed another zealot's body onto the pile of corpses, Grif was grimly pleased that rigor mortis hasn't set in. It made bodies a bitch to move.

A different sort of killer.

Grif knew guilt and shame. The dark emotions had been his constant companion for years. They'd accompanied him into Project Freelancer's deadly embrace. At various times since Blood Gulch, he's been able to push them away, to let them go in favor of focusing on the crisis of the hour.

But the months he'd spent in isolation on the moon had given him plenty of time to stew. Plenty of time to reflect on the horrors he'd committed on a now-dead world, as well as realizing and accepting the mistake he'd made in staying behind.

His only consolation right now is that the frantic, panicked energy that had filled him after Locus revealed himself has finally faded away. The rush of having someone else to talk to had leveled off into something far more manageable.

He's back with the others. He'd apologized - he finally got the words out - and had been accepted back into the fold. And Simmons… Simmons had welcomed him back. None of it would have mattered if Simmons had rejected him. He's not so sure, though, about the others, if their acceptance back in the underwater base will continue.

Tucker's an emotional wreck. Over the past few days (according to Simmons), he's gone from a cocky bastard to a volatile, guilt-ridden mess. It's worse than when he lost most of his squad back on Chorus, back before they'd learned the truth about Felix and Locus.

Sarge, meanwhile, had apparently temporarily flipped to the other side? Simmons hadn't dwelt on that when he'd been whispering updates to Grif overnight while Dylan's ship frantically flew to Earth. The first time Grif saw Sarge, the old man had ended up on his knees in tears, begging for forgiveness. And hadn't once threatened him. Even when the camera man, Jax, declared they needed someone to sacrifice themselves and Sarge jumped in to agree, he didn't look over at Grif or volunteer him or… anything. They've entered uncharted territory and Grif can't help but be afraid of this vast unknown.

Grif's done everything he can to make up for leaving, for not being there when shit had hit the fan. He saved the ship from missiles, doped himself on meth-meth shrooms, threw up, shot Simmons' evil clone, tried (and failed) to swing heroically into battle, and stared down Temple until he flinched and Grif was able to tackle him to the ground.

He just hoped it's enough.

He can't survive on his own. The moon proved that. If the guys reject him…

He'll be right back where he was after… after the colony. Alone. Broken. Overcome with guilt and shame. This time, though, no one will come looking for him. There will be no job offers from a strange man with a disturbingly calm and level voice. There will be no second chance to make up for all the things he's done.

We're a different sort, Tucker. We only fight and take lives when we have to.

As the last of the bodies joined the pile and the Reds cleaned their gauntlets in the ocean water, Grif found Carolina's words bouncing through his head once more.

He's known since the colony that he's a killer. The worst kind. A killer of women. And children. A man who'd shoot someone in the head and destroy their bodies.

At the time, he'd told himself it was the only way to keep the other scavengers from looking on the dead and dying as… well, a means to an end. A way to stave off the horrible hunger slowly killing them all.

It hadn't mattered in the end. Of all the survivors rescued from the planet surface, he was the only one who hadn't succumbed to the poisonous air they'd breathed for months, or the tainted food, disease, infection, or the terrors in their own minds.

He'd nearly joined them. As he went through PT in the hospital, he could practically see the bloody hand prints he left in his wake, the walls slowly turning red with the memory of his misdeeds. He was a murderer, a killer. He'd taken the lives of the aliens trying to kill him and the lives of innocent people just trying to survive. And that put him among the dregs of humanity.

We only fight and take lives when we have to.

Something about what Carolina had said stuck with him. As the Blues joined them outside, staring up into the sky for the ship that had just hailed their personal comm frequency, Grif's mind drifted back to the colony and his struggle to survive. He remembered the adrenaline rush of dodging Tex and murderous Freelancers. Memories of Chorus flashed, one after another, a world so similar to that lost colony that his nightmares had more than doubled in intensity.

He didn't like shooting people. Didn't like getting shot at. But he'd signed up to be a soldier. He'd been drafted into the ranks of Project Freelancer. And if he took a step outside himself, if he tried to examine every death he'd caused…

Had he really had a choice?

They all had a choice, to act or not act, to take one path or another. (Unless free will was an illusion. He was still pondering that.)

He'd always tried so hard not to kill. Dragged his feet until he had no other choice. That's how it had always been.

He was a killer. He'd taken sentient life. There was no getting around that.

But maybe Carolina was right. He wasn't like Temple. He'd never killed just because he could. He couldn't remember just lashing out in rage and pain. He always tried to find another way.

We're a different sort, Tucker. We only fight and take lives when we have to.

If Carolina was right… Maybe he could be that different kind of killer she'd described. Someone who only fought and took lives when there was no other choice. It was definitely true of the others. And if they truly were welcoming him back… maybe they saw that in him.

A ship appeared in the distance, racing towards the volcanic island. An odd sensation of calm settled on him. And for the first time in years, Grif stopped fighting with himself. And felt at peace.