"Please do not ever think about that ever again," Luke said, with a somewhat comically appalled look on his face. "And no, I did not read your mind." Which made him equally complicit in the thought, he knew. But he, too, sobered quickly.

"He cannot know," he said quietly. "My... opening back up to the Force is a danger already. I have no doubt that he wishes to finish what... what was started, all those years ago. And that puts anyone with me--in any sense--in danger."

He reached out to brush his fingers along Rey's cheek, gently tilting her face up to meet his gaze. The tenderness in his own said all he wished to, for now, of how that would pain him in her case.

And, perhaps, why he had secluded himself here.

"Which means... I need to teach you how to shut yourself down, too. When needed. I'm not asking you to give up what you've only just discovered."

He knew he wouldn't have been able to, in her place.