coolhandluke | Ahch-To, Baby

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Ahch-To, Baby

There were a lot of things Luke hadn't asked himself in the years since arriving on Ach-To. Some because he didn't want to know--or imagine--the answers. Some because there was no reason to borrow more trouble than he already had, and the litany of regrets was already long enough. Some because, well, they just weren't thinks that Luke Skywalker ever thought of.

Like the fact that he looked like some old Jedi hermit, complete with beard and unkempt hair and dingy robes. It hadn't exactly been part of the plan, but then, there hadn't been anyone to comment, or even a mirror.

That was the outside, however. Inside, something in Luke had died long ago, stopping in its tracks. Meeting himself, he would have assumed wisdom and calm, if a little eccentricity. But that hadn't been why Luke had come here, and it hadn't been what he'd found. No, it wasn't the Jedi Master who had retreated. It was the scared farm-boy, who'd flown too high and been brought crashing to ground. It was Luke from Tatooine, who had tried to be Master Skywalker, the hero, and failed.

That was what he'd been running from. That expectation, and his failure at it. That, and the disaster he knew his presence would bring to what was left of what he and the Rebellion had built, if Ben knew where he was. Better, he'd thought, to close himself off and shut down before he hurt anyone else. By his own hand, or by leading Kylo Ren to exact revenge.

It was not so simple a thing, however, to die. Unwilling to take any more lives, including his own, he lingered. Unwilling to open himself up to the Force, he nevertheless existed within it, his body sustained by it as much as by the food he caught. For awhile it seemed that he would just continue, in a sort of limbo of his own making, unwilling to make a move that would upset the galaxy even further than his presence already had.

Until she came.

Rey held a mirror up to him, one he wasn't always willing to gaze into but one from which it was impossible to escape--not least because she simply wouldn't go away. At first resentful, he quickly became resigned.

And then, suddenly, he became expectant. Not hopeful--he would not go so far as to say that--but there came a morning when he realized he would be disappointed to find her gone, given up. Despite his fear, despite his warnings, he wanted her to persist.

Maybe because he hadn't. And as much shame as he felt over that fact, the shame was at least an emotion. And as much as he'd tried to suppress those over the past years, the irritation at her arrival had begun to wear away at his resolve like grains of sand until emotions he'd thought long buried began to unearth themselves.

The truth was, Luke Skywalker was every bit the mess he looked. And yet, the longer she stayed, the less he could find it within himself to resent it. He'd been too long alone, and too long waiting. It only stood to reason that he'd bend to the first wind that came.

Wasn't how this had all started, to begin with?

The sun had barely risen when he took position, waiting outside the hut she'd claimed, unwilling to seem too eager but having to quash a small stirring of impatience, just the same. Warnings not to get too close, too attached, flickered in his mind's eye like a glitched holovid. But Luke had never once detached from anything--and if going to the most remote location he could find hadn't done it, he didn't know that it was worth trying, anymore.

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Luke gaped at her. There was no other word for it. Where could he possibly begin with that speech? With the fact he did respect her enough not to assume she'd actually come to this sort of thing on her own? Or the fact that she was actually discussing acting on it? Or the fact that this whole thing was utterly ridiculous even before they got to specifics?

"Rey, I..." He blinked. "Of course I respect you. I respect you far too much to credit any notion that you would have come to that sort of conclusion on your own. I respect you far too much to think the... the misplaced and craven fantasies of an old man should be shared by someone like you. I respect you far too much to have wished that my lack of control would affect you, when you came here to seek my aid. I should be able to control myself. I don't want to tell you you're wrong, but I can't..." He shook his head, flushed and flabbergasted. "I cannot imagine that this is anything but my... my own isolation and lack of... practice."

"Just because you've been isolated doesn't make this any less real."

She spoke as someone who knew what she was talking about, mostly because she did. She'd kept herself away from most people for most of her life. It could well be that the only reason she'd come to look at Luke this way was because he'd been the only man she'd gotten to really know for more than a few minutes before someone started shooting at her. But did that invalidate the feelings that had developed?

Still, the idea of actually acting on those feelings was something she had absolutely no experience with, even insofar as simply having some physical contact with someone that wasn't violent nor platonic. So while she was horribly tempted to prove beyond a doubt that she really did feel an attraction to him - an attraction that he apparently felt as well - she had no idea how.

"I've been isolated far longer than you have. And believe me, I didn't have these sorts of feelings for any of the other people I'd met recently. If it were a matter of desperation, the matter would have been resolved long before we met. But I'm not that kind of woman. I have standards. And whether or not you think much of yourself, I obviously think the world of you."

Luke was reasonably certain this was not how this story was supposed to go. In his wildest, maddest dreams, he could not have imagined being faced with this. A beautiful, fierce, independent desert girl, more powerful in the Force than anyone he'd seen in a generation, comes to an island to recall Luke Skywalker to the Cause--and develops feelings for him? Not hero-worship, not even necessarily romantic, but sexual.

If he was going to accept that he hadn't planted the thought in her mind--and he still wasn't entirely convinced of that--then he had to admit that the feelings emanating from her now and in her/their dreams were not simply the sort of crushes he had occasionally encountered in his younger days. He'd rejected those out of hand, if gently, because it had not interested him and would have seemed improper even if it had. The starry-eyed hero-chaser, he'd managed to avoid. As he'd gotten older, his reputation had shifted from pilot and hero to Jedi Master and that had quelled some of the uncomfortable interest, though not all.

That said, what was going on here was still wildly inappropriate, and Luke was still too stubborn to imagine that he could possibly be attractive. That said, he was also too old to feel addled and flushed at her words, and yet...

"Rey, I..." He trailed off, hands spreading helplessly. "I have no idea how you want me to... to respond to this." He felt like a stupid kid again, awkward and vulnerable and confused. What did this mean? He'd thought it was so simple--he'd made a mistake, and she could either leave or let him fix it. But this... This, he had no idea what to do with.

Rey would always feel a touch of hero worship towards Luke, though now it was tempered with a healthy dose of realism. Whatever he might have been in his youth, he was just a man now, or at least, doing his very best to live as just a man. He could have done anything, been anyone, and instead of going into a life of politics or military, he'd chosen this. It made no sense to her, not from any sort of logical standpoint, but at the very least, she was able to respect it.

Maybe her feelings would have never gotten intense enough to be noticed if only Rey had had a father figure growing up. That would have helped her understand that these feelings might not have been the most appropriate, that Luke should feel more like a parent than a potential partner. But maybe it was the fact that she hadn't had that while growing up that made her want him, since she had no false conceptions of him being "too old" or "too fatherly" or too anything, except perhaps for too emotionally unavailable.

That last one might be more accurate than she'd been willing to believe, given his response. She glanced away, not so much ashamed about what she'd said as she was about the fact that she'd upset the tenuous balance of their relationship, whatever it might have been up until now. "Honestly." At first, it sounded as though that was the beginning of a statement, but then she realized that nothing else needed to be said.

"I want you to respond honestly," she told him, looking at him again and trying not to let her shame translate in her body language. She didn't want him thinking she'd regretted feeling what she felt, nor that he should regret anything, either. She just wanted them to be able to move on from this, one way or the other. "Like I said, I don't expect you to act on anything, and I'm certainly not going to-... to do anything that might make you uncomfortable. But I think we should be honest with one another, and with ourselves. That's all I want."

Honestly. Well, he could not say that she was wrong, or behaving inappropriately. She was, actually, probably being the more mature of either of them. Even if he still could not quite wrap his head around the idea that she could possibly want him. Even if that was acceptable in any conceivable way.

"You're not going to make me uncomfortable?" he echoed, raising an eyebrow. "I'm a fifty..." He trailed off, frowning. "Three? Four? Anyway, I'm old. I've been living alone in self-imposed exile after losing everything and you want me to respond honestly." He shook his head, a chuckle that was nearly hysterical threatening to bubble up in his throat. "This is not how I saw today going."

She blinked, a little surprised that he offered his age (or an approximation) and also realizing that, oh... he wasn't twice her age. Another few years, and it would be closer to three times her age. That was... something of a staggering difference, but again, she had no social preconceptions of just how appropriate or inappropriate such a thing could really be.

Rey didn't like that non-answer of his, nor the way he seemed to be nearing some sort of panic or hysteria or something equally undesirable, given the subject matter. But she couldn't take back what she'd said, and neither of them could un-dream what they'd dreamed. If part of that dream had been Luke's, then it was probably better to address it, even if it would result in her being forced to give Leia a very stilted version of why she hadn't brought her brother back.

"Being older than me doesn't mean you can see the future," she told him dryly, trying to bring a little levity to the conversation. After all, if he was going to laugh, she'd rather it be because of humor than because he was losing it.

"And that wasn't an answer."

Luke sighed. "No, it wasn't," he admitted. She deserved this from him. But he was desperately out of practice with what exactly else she did deserve, as well as how to express it. "Honestly? I don't know how to handle this. I've... never had to."

He risked looking at her now, unsure what he'd see. Unsure what any of this meant. But why? It wasn't as if he could possibly act on it, for any number of reasons.

"Truth be told, I'd just come to terms with the idea of you being here. I'm still terrified of speaking to you, of the wrong thing coming out. I'm terrified of what allowing anyone to get to me now, after..." He spread his hands. "I'd just started to accept that I can't stop myself from ... reaching back." He shook his head. "I just never suspected I would react like that."

He looked down at the dead fish on the ground, eyes staring. The whole thing was absurd. What did she want him to say?

Rey couldn't say what she expected from Luke, and really, she couldn't say that she expected much of anything at all. It just seemed like this weird thing between them should be confronted before things just got more and more awkward before inevitably becoming unbearable.

"I'm the last person anyone should be terrified of speaking to," she told him after a moment of not knowing what to say. "There are just two of us on this entire island, unless you count the porgs and one Wookiee who mostly keeps to himself; there's no such thing as saying the wrong thing. Or doing the wrong thing."

Especially not if that included doing some of the things that her subconscious had imagined him doing, but she quickly bypassed that before her thoughts went somewhere wholly inappropriate. You know. Again.

"Or we could say and do nothing. That's-... that's fine too, if that's what you want."

What Luke wanted and what he thought he should have were two different things. It was ludicrous, to think they could act on this. Ludicrous to think she'd want to, even if she'd had... dreams.

And no, you are NOT allowed to speculate about what she saw. He had to pull himself together. Be the man she needed him to be, if he was going to give in to her being here at all. And be an adult.

"Oh, there is," he said sadly. "Sometimes, you don't even have to say anything to change everything forever." He looked over at her pensively, and raised a hand to lay lightly on her shoulder. "I'm sorry. That this happened... the way it did. That I'm no good at interacting with people. That... I am not reacting to this very well. The truth is... I didn't know what to do with you when you got here. And I still don't. I only know... I was terrified I'd scare you away. And I suppose that means... I don't want you do go."

He felt like he was trying to breathe through water, to get that out.

Whatever the two of them might say, Rey could only hope that Luke didn't ask her to describe just what she'd seen, or what she'd felt, or what she'd wanted. She'd never even said some of those words outside of a matter-of-fact, clinical sort of way, especially since she'd never exactly had any reason to talk openly about sex or sexual feelings.

As it was, Luke still seemed to be blaming himself, and she hated the heaviness surrounding his presence. When he touched a hand to her shoulder and admitted that he didn't want her to leave, Rey couldn't bother holding back anymore, and she stepped forward to loosely wrap her arms around him in an embrace, hoping it didn't feel as awkward for him as she thought it must look from the outside.

"You're lucky I'm so stubborn," she told him, partly scolding but mostly joking as she rested her head on his shoulder. "I'm not going anywhere, Luke. Not without you. I would have thought I'd made that clear by now."

Luke was, certainly, blaming himself. It was a habit hard to get out of, after what he'd done to Ben--and the pit into which he'd fallen in his guilt over that. He didn't deserve her, even as a companion. He didn't deserve a recourse from the loneliness and madness that shrouded him. He shouldn't be allowed to enjoy the feel of her against him.

He couldn't let this go any further.

But surely... he could let her stand here for a few moments more, and savor the warmth, since it was going to be as much as he allowed himself.

"I can't let you," he said sorrowfully, breath stirring the fine hair that escaped from her elaborate knots. "I will not watch you throw your life away."

He still had not moved to hold her. He did not trust himself.

Rey would have thought he'd take her dry comment and manage at least a chuckle out of it, or at the very least return her hug now that she'd crossed the line into physical contact. But he continued to sound so... so sad, so forlorn and broken, and she just didn't know what to do to get him to snap out of it.

She didn't let go of him, but backed up just enough to look at him, frowning as she carefully observed his face. "'Let me?' You-... really haven't been paying attention, have you?"

The fact that he was scared of her throwing her life away implied something of a lengthy commitment, and while she couldn't say she had any arguments against that, she hadn't exactly thought that far. But then... he was older than her, so it stood to reason that if he were to engage a woman in any sort of way, he'd expect it to be for an extended period of time. She understood that much, but if she wanted to agree to that sort of commitment, it was ultimately her choice.

"You can't stop what I feel. If you don't want to do anything about it, I can't force you. I'd never do that, not to you or anyone else. But... you want to. We both know you do. So what good comes in denying it?"

His expression softened as he watched her, something tender coming into his eyes. "Not that," he said softly. "That, I... I confess, I don't know what to do with, though you're right, there's no point in denying it if you're going to insist on being so... bold."

It was hard to tell whether that was a blush, or just the chafing of the cold air.

"I meant your whole not leaving without me thing. Did you..." He went back over what he'd said, what she'd said, and now he was definitely blushing. Oh. Chagrined, he abruptly turned to the fish and bent to retrieve it, gruffly stating, "Better get this somewhere out of the elements."

Was she being bold? Rey honestly had no idea what was considered bold or meek or anything in between. She just... felt things. And talked about them. She'd thought that was what most people did, when they actually had someone to talk to.

And that was what Luke was to her, primarily. Someone she could talk to, someone who didn't just hang on her every word the way Finn did or try to manipulate her like Kylo Ren did. It felt normal to talk to Luke, natural. So of course she'd tell him when she'd started developing feelings for him, even if she didn't have any real knowledge of how to express those feelings.

It was when he suddenly broke away from her to go towards the fish again that she realized just how far out of her depth she was, since she didn't know if this really was how normal people talked about this sort of thing or if Luke was just exceptionally avoidant. Either way, she wasn't going to let him drop it quite so easily.

"Did I what, Luke?"

Luke slung the fish across his shoulders, which was no doubt extremely heightening to his allure. No, Rey, this is not how normal people talked about these things, but Luke was hardly in a position to know that.

"You thought I was referencing my... your..." He shrugged and the fish's tail flopped which was not exactly a meaningful gesture. "It wasn't a declaration, I mean. I... Oh, for the love of the nine Hells of Corellia--"

Where was Han when he needed him? The thought sent a sharp pang through him. Han would have known what to do. After about three weeks of teasing him mercilessly, of course, but Luke would have deserved it. He turned and started back towards the settlement, expecting Rey to catch up.

"I bet you're wondering why I'm single," he called over his shoulder.

Rey wasn't exactly in a better position to know how people did these sorts of things, or even what this sort of thing was. They weren't flirting - or, at least, if they were then she'd had the completely wrong idea of what flirting was - and they weren't fighting, and they weren't-....

Well, it was probably easier to keep a running list of what they weren't doing versus what they were.

When he took off without completing his thought, Rey was so startled that all she could do was follow after him, looking him over carefully. She hadn't managed to ostracize him, so that was good, but they weren't actually coming any closer to getting anything said or done, so it didn't quite feel like they were exactly breaking even either.

"Possibly because you seem to have trouble finishing a sentence or maintaining eye contact when someone is talking to you." Though she was mostly joking, Rey was also being at least somewhat serious. It would be nice if she didn't have to guess at how to complete his sentences and figure out what he was talking about.

In a quieter voice, she mentioned, "Honestly, though, I was sort of wondering about that. Leia had found Han. I know the Jedi aren't known for having families of their own, but given how unconventional your story had been, didn't you ever... want... that? Or was there someone and she's just... not here anymore?"

Rey didn't think she was being brutally insensitive, but then, she admittedly didn't know about the best way to approach this sort of conversation.

Now that he wasn't looking at her, and had something to do--navigate a rocky path with a giant fish on his shoulders--he was having an easier time talking.

"No, the trouble talking and eye contact thing probably have more to do with years of isolation," he said, leaving off the crippling depression. "Not to mention a childhood lack of social interaction..."

But with the other question, he fell silent, watching her sidelong as they walked for a long moment. Finally, he sighed.

"I'm going to try to answer that," he said finally, a little flat in his tone. "Because... I think that has something to do with the lesson I'm trying to give you, about the Jedi. But I'll need a moment."

Squaring his shoulders, he made it to the stone hut he was using as a storeroom and stashed the fish inside. He'd smoke it later. For now, he moved to his hut, leaving the door open. Inside, he found a kettle and a jar of leaves, and set about making tea. The tea was for warmth, and to calm nerves. The making of it was to give his hands something to do while his mouth and brain rehearsed memories long left unspoken. But this was important, not as someone who had been dreaming about a young woman, but as a Jedi trying desperately to teach another why they had failed.

"It's complicated," he said, as he tipped some of the herbs from the jar into the pot. "Not in the holo-thriller sort of way. Just... I don't know that I've ever understood whether it was my temperament or my circumstances. First, I was simply too busy. Later..." He shrugged, busying himself by finding two mugs and blowing them out, as if potentially dusty. "Later, it seemed frivolous. How could I run a school, train young Jedi, and spend weekends off trysting with... Well, and there's that. With whom? Would I have found the time, and the woman, if it's what I had really wanted? Perhaps. What I do know is that the Jedi used to forbid attachments of that sort. I didn't want to make that same mistake. I refused to believe that strong feeling was necessarily damaging. And yet..."

"I used to talk to flowers when I was a child," Rey pointed out. "And flowers were rare on Jakku. If you really wanted to make this a game of who had the least amount of social interaction...."

Except she knew he didn't, no more than she did. It wouldn't do either of them any good to think about the loneliness they'd both experienced. Especially not now that they'd found one another, whatever might become of the relationship they'd formed.

Instead, she stayed quiet when he promised to give her an answer, having developed more than enough patience over the years to be able to wait until he got that giant fish out of the way, and they were no longer in a potentially dangerous environment. Once she was back inside his hut, she instinctively moved to follow him towards the fire, sitting down as she watched him busy himself with making tea before he was ready to speak.

"... and yet... you've never found anyone to feel that strongly towards?" It was as much a shot in the dark as it was a question borne of disbelief. How could he have lived as long as he had and have never found anyone over the course of his life? While romance had never been on the forefront of her mind, Rey had always assumed that she'd eventually find someone, after....

Well. After her parents had found her. Which was just about as good as saying she'd end up like Luke by the time she was his age, if she even made it that long.

That was a sobering thought, and she looked down as she considered all of the implications therein. She wondered if Luke had only developed feelings for her because she'd been the first woman who'd literally shipped herself to his doorstep and presented herself as available to him, but that theory was every bit as unfair to him as it was her. Lonely or not, he had to have standards, right?

"If it had been a matter of your circumstances, then those have changed, now that I'm here. But again, if you don't want to pursue anything and would rather forget we're anything more than teacher and student... if you feel that's best, then I can do that." She hesitated for a brief moment before adding, "I'd rather not, but I can."

Luke watched her a long moment, his expression still somewhat disbelieving, before reaching for the pot and pouring two cups of tea. It was not expertly done--there were bits of leaf floating in it--but it was hot, and it would, at least, calm him.

Part of him wanted to spill everything. Every desire, every moment of loneliness or connection, every answer to her questions both asked and not. It was that reservoir that had built up, unnoticed, now offering sustained pressure on the dam he'd built now that she'd shown him the cracks.

But another part simply couldn't accept that any of this was happening. And still another part knew that it was, and refused to give in to it because it should not be happening. There were more important things happening, and he could fully accept his own decision to ignore them but not hers.

"There have been... people," he said after a moment, very slowly. He wrapped his hands around one mug, leaving the other next to the pot. Why, oh why, was he talking about his love life with the girl who'd come here to be trained? "Not many. But it never lasted. It couldn't. They either wanted something I could not give, or wanted someone I never was." He shrugged, and took a sip of his tea. It almost burned his tongue, and he rather welcomed the shock of it. "Or maybe it was I who asked too much. Expected them to share me with what I saw as my greater mission."

This was raw, this was personal, but it was, thus far, easier to bemoan the losses of the past than deal with the confusion of the present. But he could hardly leave that out there, fluttering in the cruel wind. He looked down at his mug, but watched her from lowered brows.

"What is it," he began quietly, "you think there is to pursue, here? You had a dream. A dream which, whatever you say, may or may not have been influenced by the lonely fantasies of an old man with a tenuous grasp on reality, not to mention decorum. You speak as though you'd be ... giving something up, to forget about it. When any rational being in the universe would see the balance in exactly the opposite way."

When Luke admitted that there had been "people," the majority of Rey's mind calmly thought that yes, okay, that made sense, everyone has people at some point in their lives and that was to be expected. But there was a smaller, more immature part of her that rustled uncomfortably, and it took her a few moments to realize that it was jealousy. Seriously? She was feeling jealous of people she hadn't even met, over things that had likely happened before she'd even been born?

That should have put things in perspective for her, insofar as how unconventional the thought of the two of them together in any romantic fashion really was. Instead, she shoved whatever doubts she might have ever had aside as she listened to Luke, understanding that he was telling her things he'd had no intention of ever telling her - or, possibly, anyone - just a day or two ago. She wouldn't disrespect him by not listening or by getting caught up by doubts now.

"If you're with someone, they should be able to accept you. All of you. Your celebrity and your normalcy, your devotion to them and your duty as a Jedi. And you should be able to do the same for them. If you can't, then they weren't the person for you. But the funny thing about people is that the galaxy is full of them. Just because it had never worked out in the past doesn't mean there aren't still billions more people to meet with whom it can work. If that's something you find yourself wanting, you deserve to pursue it, just like any other living being searching for companionship."

Rey's problem had been that she'd never wanted that, not with any of the people she'd met. But now... now she did. And it was because of Luke. So while that might not have been part of her own greater mission, there was no harm in seeing where things went. Right?

"If I forgot about the dream, about how it - ... about how you'd made me feel, then I'm just lying to myself, ignoring a basic truth staring me right in the face whenever I look at you. I can't keep doing that. I can't go through life just ignoring major truths because they're too complicated or uncomfortable to address."

She tried to tell herself that she was only thinking about her feelings for Luke, and not about any uncomfortable truths she'd been ignoring about her family. She almost believed it.

Part of him knew that she was, to some degree, misplacing her energy. She needed to strike out, yes, but this wasn't the grand adventure that called to her. This, whatever it was, was secondary. Maybe lower down than that. The worlds opening up before her now had little to do with paltry, ordinary sexual awakening.

But what did Luke really know of anything like that?

"And yet, being uncomfortable isn't reason enough to push the issue," he sighed. He shook his head, thinking of her optimistic little view of relationships, her offering him advice about what people should or should not have been able to deal with. As if it were so simple, and now, here she was. His head was spinning, the memory of his own body's awakening not entirely dismissed despite his earlier efforts. How could he forget, with her sitting there, blithely arguing he should... what? Give in to a gross violation of the teacher/student pact?

You never even wanted a student, a very irritating part of his brain reminded him.

"It's not exactly been a priority for me, Rey. In my life, there's been little room for... for that sort of connection. There was always something more important going on. And then..."

He fell silent, chin lowering to his chest as he started into his tea.

"I came here, at first, to regroup. To seek some wisdom that had, perhaps, eluded me. Something that could help me turn the tide of darkness. As time went on, as... it became clear I could not, it became more about avoiding the pain I had created. Mine, yes, but not only that. I came here to avoid creating more. And because I knew I did not deserve forgiveness, because I cannot... undo what's been done."

He looked up at her.

"I'd given up expecting anyone to even look. I'd given up the thought of any sort of human connection. Two days ago, I'd have said that, for all intents and purposes, I was already dead."

Rey didn't want to be pushy. She didn't even know what she was pushing for, exactly. She had no idea how this sort of thing worked between two normal people, never mind two people with their own set of peculiar circumstances. It didn't matter to her that he was older than her, and it didn't matter to her that he was her teacher. She was attracted to him, and what was the point in denying that?

If Luke didn't want her, then she would drop it. And even if he did want her, but was too uncomfortable to really pursue anything in good conscience, she would still drop it. But if he didn't want to pursue anything simply because it didn't fit into some societal view of what was appropriate... well, it wasn't as though either of them had much use for society at large, so that would be a little silly.

Still, she stayed silent and listened to him speak, frowning a little as he alluded to past mistakes. She didn't know the whole of it, and at this point, he may well simply have been wrongfully shouldering the entirety of the blame for his nephew's fall to the Dark Side. That thought left her feeling the need to reach out to him that much stronger.

Getting up, Rey slowly approached him, almost as though she was concerned about scaring him off. "And now?" she asked softly, wanting to reach out to him but just barely managing to keep herself from doing so. "Did you realize that you still have a pulse?"

Luke watched her move closer, warily, like an animal willing to be tamed but allowed to run feral for years and uncertain whether he was facing friend or foe. At her question, he laughed shortly, surprised into the sound.

"That's one way to put it," he said slowly. He wondered, absurdly, how Ben would have reacted if he'd said these things all those years ago on Tatooine. Not that it had ever occurred to him to do to--Obi-Wan Kenobi had been a crazy old hermit, not a legend, and had meant something more like a father to him than anything else. He wondered why Rey was different. He wondered if it was something he should worry about. He certainly wasn't going to give in, because he was the adult here and he knew what happened when Jedi gave into their emotions.

Or was it that he knew what happened when they didn't?

His brow furrowed at the intrusive thought. Not that he'd encountered this exact issue before, but what was the lesson to be drawn? Which experience was the right one to look to, the one where denial of connection led to anger and loss of compassion, or the one where being too close to a person blinded him to the complexity of their darkness?

"But that, I can almost understand," he spoke, mouth deciding for him not to think about either. "No matter how inappropriate, no one could ever call me crazy for thinking you beautiful or... or blame me for, however unconsciously, desiring a connection." He shook his head. "My pulse notwithstanding, why yours should be affected is a mystery."

She stopped, not liking the wary way he watched her, as though he was expecting her to do something without his explicit consent. Aside from the hug earlier, she hadn't even touched him, though she'd made it quite obvious that she wanted to, just as he'd made it clear that he'd wanted to touch her. But she was going to defer to him throughout all of this; not only did he have more experience in these matters, but while her solitude had made her eager to experience everything life had had to offer, his had only made him cagey.

When he spoke, Rey found herself caught off-guard, blinking at him in surprise. "You think I'm beautiful?" She supposed that made sense, yes. Attraction had to do with more than whether or not someone was just there and available. Still... no one had ever called Rey beautiful before. Even the compliments she had managed to garner while on Jakku had been crude and disgusting, which had been part of why she'd been so quick to learn how to defend herself.

Still, she didn't want to be looked at as some foolish little girl whose head could be turned just by being told she was pretty, so she tried to get past that, shaking her head as though to clear it. "Are you saying people would call me crazy?" she asked dryly, a small chuckle coloring her words. "Well... it's a good thing I don't care about what people think."

Rey moved towards him again, tilting her head as she really looked at Luke. "You're handsome," she told him, as though having decided it right at that moment. "I don't know why you would think otherwise. When you smile... it brightens your entire face and makes me want to make you smile even more. There's a kindness inside you that years of isolation couldn't extinguish, and I see it most when you smile. And even when you don't, it's there in your eyes the whole time. And beyond that...."

At that, she shrugged, stopping directly in front of him and having to make a conscious effort not to touch him. "Attraction isn't measured by appearances. It's something deeper than that, isn't it? If you don't believe that... see for yourself." Instead of touching him, she essentially invited him to make that contact instead, reaching her hand out, palm-up, silently telling him that he was welcome to take her pulse if he disbelieved her.

The idea that anyone who looked like her could not know they were exquisite was absurd. No matter how little exposure she'd had to society, she'd met people, right? She'd met Han, for that matter--though, Luke reminded himself, even Han wasn't nearly so lecherous as to think about touching a girl her age. Plus, he'd probably had a lot of other things on his mind.

Which Luke really should, as well. The thought that Han Solo was better at keeping it in his pants than Luke Skywalker was almost insulting. To both of them.

As she spoke, moving towards him, Luke wanted to protest. He didn't need a lecture on the nature of attraction, or a paean to his beauty. Because that was not the point and not what either of them was here for. But if he admitted that, he had to admit that they were here for another reason. And that would suggest a course of action. Action that was decidedly not checking out and dying alone.

Unbeknownst to him, her words were effecting a change in his expression, a smile curling around the corners of his eyes and almost reaching his mouth, but a smile of surprise and not a little wonder. Was there any kindness left in him? He did wonder that. But for her to think she saw it, for her to hold that mirror up, it showed him a self he'd thought lost.

He wanted to see more. He was tired of his own thoughts, tired of his own cracked mirror image, seen only in the reflection of a terrified boy he'd betrayed. Maybe he only deserved to define himself by Kylo Ren's hatred, but he wanted something else in the way a plant could not help but want the sun. And it was being offered to him, freely.

Almost without thought, his hand reached out, calloused fingers brushing hers as he cautiously reached out with the Force, the very thing that had started this whole mess to begin with. He was not wholly open--he kept wraps on some of his darker feelings--but in his energy she'd be able to read not only his fear of failure and his trepidation at letting anyone in but, underneath, a deep well of loneliness, attuned specifically to her presence and the feelings she had evoked with her nerve and spirit.

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