The question made him want to laugh. What right had he to be okay, let alone have anyone ask it of him? He'd given up that right, not only when Kylo Ren had shattered the dream of a new Jedi Order but when he'd taken on the mantle of Jedi Master. At first, he could not afford to not be all right. Later, nothing could ever be right again.
Luke vaguely knew that he was on the edge of some sort of breakdown, that what was going on was the result of an unhealthy period of abnegation and denial followed by a new circumstance he wasn't dealing with well at all. But in the moment, he only knew that he was torn between anger at himself and concern for her.
It made him uncharacteristically mean.
"What?" he asked, brow furrowed. "You think that after everything I've been through and done, the Sith lords I've faced, wars I've fought, worlds I've visited, that something a girl says is what's going to take me down? You think a conversation ranks up there in the list of bad days Luke Skywalker has had? You think I can't handle one wayward child--"
He stopped cold, a look of horror passing over his features as his own words sink in, as his own anger melts away in the face of the memory of what that anger has caused in the past. And he stepped back inadvertently, seeking to increase the distance not from her, but from the impulse to lash out that could only be because he had so little practice with any real feeling that none of them seemed to be working.
"I'm sorry," he said, almost voiceless, and staring at her as if waiting for something to change in her eyes, some sign that he's failed her, too. "I don't mean any of that. I'm..."
no subject
The question made him want to laugh. What right had he to be okay, let alone have anyone ask it of him? He'd given up that right, not only when Kylo Ren had shattered the dream of a new Jedi Order but when he'd taken on the mantle of Jedi Master. At first, he could not afford to not be all right. Later, nothing could ever be right again.
Luke vaguely knew that he was on the edge of some sort of breakdown, that what was going on was the result of an unhealthy period of abnegation and denial followed by a new circumstance he wasn't dealing with well at all. But in the moment, he only knew that he was torn between anger at himself and concern for her.
It made him uncharacteristically mean.
"What?" he asked, brow furrowed. "You think that after everything I've been through and done, the Sith lords I've faced, wars I've fought, worlds I've visited, that something a girl says is what's going to take me down? You think a conversation ranks up there in the list of bad days Luke Skywalker has had? You think I can't handle one wayward child--"
He stopped cold, a look of horror passing over his features as his own words sink in, as his own anger melts away in the face of the memory of what that anger has caused in the past. And he stepped back inadvertently, seeking to increase the distance not from her, but from the impulse to lash out that could only be because he had so little practice with any real feeling that none of them seemed to be working.
"I'm sorry," he said, almost voiceless, and staring at her as if waiting for something to change in her eyes, some sign that he's failed her, too. "I don't mean any of that. I'm..."