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's eyes narrowed, thinking perhaps he'd been too fulsome in his praise. It would not do to let the girl lose her head over flattery--or worse, think that she did not need guidance. There was a rush within her at the praise, and he bit back a reply because he also knew that in her life, she'd seldom received any feedback, let alone positive?

It was surprising that anything could make him sad at this point, given his general baseline.

"It's limited," he hazarded, then frowned. "A visual projection takes a tremendous amount of power, not to mention concentration." Not to mention, something it seemed unlikely she'd have come up with on her own. "Why do you ask? Did you have someone you wanted to contact you get get on comm?" He swallowed. "Or were you planning on leaving?"

He tried not to feel anything at that thought. He kept the tinge of disappointment at bay, because it was beneath him, and her leaving was, after all, what he'd been asking for.

Whatever it was that she and Kylo had been doing couldn't be a visual projection, then, since it seemed to have been occurring almost naturally, with no thought on either of their parts. At least, Rey certainly had had no intention on communicating with Kylo that way; if he'd been feigning his surprise and confusion and had really been behind these visions all along, that was a little more troubling. It brought her right back to square one, wherein she worried that this strange sort of communication was a sign that Kylo had gotten into her head and was going to use that to his fullest advantage.

Before she could fret too much over that, though, Luke was asking questions, and for some reason, that last one hit her like a splash of cold water. "What? No! I already told you, I'm not leaving this island without you. And you're far from the most stubborn person in the galaxy."

The thought of leaving Ahch-To hadn't crossed her mind, not with Kylo telling her that he couldn't see her surroundings. Luke was still safe, and so long as that was the case, she had no reason to leave. Leia might forgive Rey for returning empty-handed, but Rey wouldn't be able to forgive herself.

Besides... she didn't want to leave Luke. She felt a natural kinship with anyone who was isolated and lonely, and even disregarding that, she liked him. He wasn't nearly so gruff as his exterior made him seem.

"You're stuck with me, Master Skywalker. Unfortunately for you, I've become very good at waiting over the years."

There was something she wasn't telling him. Something she was holding back. And he sensed that it was important, and that there was a reason she was loathe to mention it directly. But forcing it out of her was out of the question. She would reveal her true motives in due course, he tried to tell himself.

Still, her questions did not add up.

"I wouldn't say far from the most stubborn," he cautioned instead, raising an eyebrow. Who did she think he was? Which stories had she heard? Not that it mattered. He sighed. "I'm not leaving. I don't know how to make you understand why that's for the best, but I, too, have had my share of waiting." He tilted his head slightly. "What were you waiting for?"

Leia. It had been Leia who'd told her stories about Luke. Other people, too, strangers along the Niima Outpost and such, sharing anecdotes about the great Luke Skywalker that were completely, unequivocally true. But more recently, Leia had opted to give Rey an idea of the kind of man her brother was, and she might have mentioned the word stubborn more than once. Granted, it was usually wrapped in the context of almost as stubborn as me, but Rey had assumed she'd been joking. She highly doubted anyone could begin to compare with Leia Organa's stubbornness.

Of course, Luke was ranking a close second, and she debated - however briefly - actually telling him about the way his nephew had been reaching out to her, in the hopes that it would impress upon him how powerful Kylo had become and how much damage he could potentially do if his abilities grew much more. How else could Luke help her with her problem if he didn't know exactly what the problem was, after all?

But Luke's question distracted her somewhat, and she found herself looking down even as she answered automatically. "My parents." The response usually didn't come so easily and was something she'd always obstinately held close to her chest, but... in light of everything that's happened to her, it almost felt like she was telling someone else's story, like those travelers through the outpost talking about the adventures of the young Luke Skywalker.

"They'd left me on Jakku when I was young, but they'll be back for me one day." The words were hollow, and holding on to that empty mantra hurt more than she'd care to admit. Instead of making any sort of eye contact, she focused her attention downwards, fingers absently digging through the patch of soil on which she was sitting. "This is the longest I've been gone from there. I hope they don't think I've stopped waiting."

The hollowness of that reassurance struck him to the core, and he bit back any notion of pity. It would not serve either of them, and not be accepted by her. But it did hurt, to see such strength yoked to a dead dream. He could not dissuade her from it, but perhaps he could offer some comfort.

Or at least perspective.

"Rey," he said gently, eyes soft but his gaze firm. "I can't pretend it's the same situation, but I know a little something about... waiting for a family that doesn't come. Or isn't... what you expected. Sometimes you have to leave home to find it. If I hadn't left Tatooine, I would never have found my sister. My father. My own family."

It was more complicated than that, of course. He'd been lied to, for one. But then, how much was Rey lying to herself?

As soon as he said her name, Rey tensed, readying herself for the wave of pity that she'd always known would accompany any admission she made about her parents. Instead, she got something that was more along the line of commiseration, even if Luke was right: it wasn't the same situation. He'd found his family. Rey... despite the way she constantly clung to hope, she was no longer sure that she'd ever find hers.

"If I hadn't left Jakku, I would have never found Han." And he never would have been roped back into the Resistance and practically walked to his own death. That much she didn't say, though, but the way she swallowed back at the hurt was probably enough for someone as observant as Luke to know where her thoughts might have gone.

"Or Leia. Or you," she added, managing to offer up a small smile as she finally looked up at Luke again. "You might not be family, but I'm still grateful to have found you."

Luke sighed. He wasn't sure Rey should be grateful to have found him, and did not trust his own feeling of gratitude at being seen. He'd come here to stop this feeling from ruining any more lives. He could not let this girl's need for family, for guidance, draw him back in.

"Han is..." He briefly bit his lip. "Han was one of the people I meant," he said. "Family. It's not always blood, Rey. I, of all people, recognize the importance of blood. But it should not be at the expense of others who need you."

There was too much emotion there as Luke switched to past tense when talking about Han, and Rey looked down again, determined to force the tears threatening to spill from her eyes from making good on their threat. She wasn't a crier, not in front of other people, especially not about things that couldn't be changed.

Swallowing back those tears, she finally managed to look up at Luke again. "Does anyone really need me, though? I'm not sure that anyone outside of Finn would miss me all that much if I never left this island. Of course, that would be the complete opposite of what I was sent out to do...."

He wanted to ask about Han. There was a part of him that blamed himself for not having stopped Ben. He'd cut himself off--he hadn't known. He could have done something. What, he did not know--but inaction was no excuse.

It was, however, what he'd chosen. To avoid further pain. But whose?

There was, too, that part that knew that Ben was his fault, and thus Han's death was too in a very real, if indirect, sense. And so he bit back his questions, his need to connect on the basis of a shared friend who was as much of a brother to Luke as Leia was a sister. Perhaps even more so.

But it was not the time to wallow in yet another mistake he'd made.

"It doesn't work that way," he said, shaking his head. "You don't get to decide who needs you--or even know, sometimes. Our lives touch so many, Rey. The Force can often show us how what we do may ripple out into the universe, but better men than I have been mistaken about the actions of one person."

Part of Rey would love to talk about Han. She'd built up such an elaborate image of him in her mind, and she wanted to know how much of it was true. He hadn't been perfect, she knew that much. But he'd very obviously loved his son, even if it seemed like he didn't know how. She would have given anything to have a father who looked at her the way Han had looked at Kylo, and she would have cherished him for as long as she could rather than unceremoniously end his life.

But now wasn't the time. As difficult as it was to sort through all her emotions after a lifetime of not having a wide array of them to begin with, she had to focus on her mission. And her mission wasn't to wallow in self-pity or learn the ways of the Jedi or even to make friends with Luke; she was only supposed to get him to come back with her so he could offer a much needed spark of hope to the Resistance.

"So... when you said the galaxy didn't need Luke Skywalker, were you mistaken or lying?" It was a cheeky sort of comment, though she was too busy sorting through her own feelings to give her words much more than a sad sort of humor.

Busy or not, biting or not, the words cut Luke to the core. Later, he would look back on what had been said and acknowledge that he had opened himself up to exactly this type of comment. That she was right, at least inasmuch as he could not use that as an argument if he was not willing to hear the corollary.

But what he heard was simply an echo of his own failure, the double-blow of having been the instrument of evil in the galaxy as well as having given up. There was no way to win. And yet, winning hadn't really been the goal, had it?

He stood up abruptly. "The lesson is done for today," he said shortly, gazing sightlessly at the sky before turning and making his way back down the path.

Given how easy their conversation had become, Rey had sort of expected him to laugh, or to offer a sardonic comment before changing the subject. She hadn't thought he would suddenly get up and turn his back on her, and it was enough to jar her out of her own head.

"Master Skywalker?"

She got up right away, scrambling after him. She didn't follow him from the large distance she had upon her first arrival, but she hoped she wasn't interfering with his personal space. Whatever he might think of her or however he took her words, Rey wanted to think of him as a friend. She had too few of those to risk losing one.

"Did I say something offensive? I didn't mean it that way, really." She wouldn't apologize for it, not since she knew as well as he did that she had a valid point, but she could at least let him know that she hadn't meant to insult him.

He knew she didn't. He knew, and could feel it now. He could also feel her fear at losing him, and that hurt. She shouldn't fear the loss of something as broken as he was. Why work so hard to bring him back? To what end?

Luke stopped, not turning to her but letting her catch up.

"I'm sorry," he said gruffly. "I guess I don't take kindly to being reminded I'm either wrong or a liar. But you're right--I can't run from you on this island. And I can't run from... the truth inherent in the question."

He looked over at her, blue eyes sad, but warm. Not closed off, or cold.

"But you'll have to forgive an old man for not enjoying the reminder. The lesson is done for today. Not... forever."

It was just too much. She had to understand that.

She stopped when he did, still concerned that he wouldn't want her too close. But as he spoke, Rey walked over to him, a few of her defenses dropping as she moved to step besides him. Until now, she'd always thought there was something inherently mythical about him, that purposely getting too close would somehow sully his mark as a Jedi master.

But now she knew that, no matter what else Luke was, he was a person first and foremost. He deserved to have someone at his side. And he also deserved to have someone to remind him when he'd said something contradictory. She didn't know if that was what friends did for one another, but it was what she would do for her friends. She'd want them to do the same for her, after all.

"First of all? It was a joke, but thank you for acknowledging that there was some truth to it."

Her voice was soft, gentle, and she had a small smile on her face. While his constant need to run away when things got hard was frustrating, Rey could understand it. After all, the first thing she'd done upon hearing that Luke's lightsaber had "chosen" her was to do the very thing she'd been angry at Finn for and run as far away from everything that she could. It just hadn't been far enough.

Maybe that was the point: we can always choose to run, but at some point, we'll have to acknowledge that we'll never run far enough.

"And secondly... thank you for the lesson. Especially given that I'm sure it's not one of the ones you'd meant to give me. Still, just because the lesson is over, it doesn't mean we have to go our separate ways, does it?"

Unless he was so out of practice with social interaction that he needed the chance to get away from her and recharge. She didn't much like that idea, but she supposed she could understand it.

He used to know about jokes. Never very good a them, but he's pretty sure humor was something he used to understand. Han might have disagreed, but--no, he wasn't going to think about Han right now.

Still, joking about his tendency to run away wasn't funny. Then again, maybe she was just even worse at jokes than he was. That made him feel a little better.

His brow furrowed as she asked her question, a genuinely surprising one. "You must be pretty bored," he said after a moment. "Big social life on Jakku, given that an old man with no sense of humor is worth chasing after?"

It hadn't been a lesson he'd meant to teach. In fact, he'd gotten utterly derailed from his original plan, which had been to teach her every lesson he could think of to dissuade her from this path. From wanting to be anything like him.

He'd learn before too long that Rey's sense of humor was slightly skewed. After all, on Jakku, most of the jokes she'd heard were at other people's expense, so while she'd never been the mean-spirited sort, that kind of thing had just stuck with her. She'd been all too happy meeting BB-8 and Finn, given that they'd made her laugh without ever having to resort to insults... mostly.

She smirked slightly at Luke's response, giving him a small shrug. "Assuming you're claiming to be the old man in question, I wouldn't say you have no sense of humor. Just that it's a bit rusty. I don't think porgs make for a very good audience. They don't look like they understand subtlety all too well."

Rey paused for a moment, then, looking away from Luke for a moment before bringing up, "Of course, if you'd rather not hang around me any longer than absolutely necessary, I can understand that."

Luke gazed at her for a long moment, holding back another sigh. He didn't know what to do with this. He no longer knew how to just be with another person, and it hadn't started with Ahch-To--he'd been holding himself apart for years before that. Because he had to. Because his students needed that. Or so he'd thought.

Had he lost Ben not just to Snoke but because, in part, he'd been unable to let the boy in?

The silence stretched between them for an awkward length of time before he said, "Stop feeling sorry for yourself. What, ah... What did you have in mind?"

Ach-To made for a different sort of loneliness from what she'd had on Jakku. On Jakku, there'd been no one around that anyone would want to associate with, but there had still been the hustle and bustle of other people around the outpost. Here, there was nothing but the never-ending roar of the sea, a sound that was so foreign to Rey that she'd had headaches the first few days.

Maybe Luke had grown accustomed to it, even if she couldn't see how. But that was perfectly all right. She could keep to herself and try her hand at staying out of trouble until Luke sent for her again. It wasn't how she'd ideally wanted to do her part for the Resistance, but if that was the only way to accomplish her goal without totally pushing him away, she'd say her goodbyes for the moment and find a quiet place to meditate on what he'd taught her so far.

So his answer took her off-guard, and she blinked up at him before shrugging, offering him a small smile. "I'm not sure, really. What do you do for recreation?" He had to have a hobby of some sort, or else there was a good chance he'd gone absolutely mad at some point and she'd just been unable to tell this whole time.

Luke just stared at her. He had no idea how to answer that question, not only because he found the idea of recreation laughable under the circumstances but also because he honestly didn't know what he'd been doing. His days had quickly started to blur, as he lost track of the outside world and tuned himself to the rhythms of the island.

He'd tried to read those Jedi texts, more than once, and ended up falling asleep and drooling on them every time.

"I'm not here on vacation," he said finally, as if that was an answer.

Rey wasn't sure why he was staring at her like that, given that the question had been straightforward enough. Hadn't it? She'd only been watching him for a few days, but that hadn't been nearly enough time to get a good idea of what he'd done all these years. He couldn't have spent that entire time just... surviving.

But his answer made her wonder if that was exactly what he'd been doing. Stunned and not bothering to hide it, Rey blinked at him for a few moments and remarked, "No, but if you don't do anything for fun, you're going to need one before you go insane. Do you swim? Draw? Collect interesting-looking rocks?"

He thought it was rather kind of her not to assume he already was insane, especially considering he couldn't swear to that himself. Especially when faced with questions like this. This was the sort of thing he should be able to answer. It was basically the simplest question you could ask--what have you been doing?

"I... don't know," he said, after a moment. His brow furrowed slightly, as if bracing for the fallout to his admission of failure at basic humanity.

She almost thought that he was just trying to be elusive - after all, how could someone not know what they enjoy doing to pass the time, especially when they have so much time to pass? But something about Luke's expression told Rey that he was being genuine with her. He honestly didn't know, and that-... that was sadder than she would have thought.

"Do you... know how to swim?" she asked softly, trying not to sound as though she was quietly judging him. "The water looks a bit choppy for it, so maybe that's not the best activity to try, but-.... If you have something I can use to draw, I can make make a few sketches for you. Or teach you some of the games I'd made up as a child. They'd probably be easier with two people, anyway."

Not that she would know, of course, since it would probably take her some time to even remember them, never mind being able to explain the rules to someone else.

This was almost worse than her thinking he was insane. Luke was not interested in her pity, and that was what this felt like.

"I'm a hermit, not a child," he said, a little too peevishly. "I didn't come here to swim or learn new hobbies." He'd come here to die. And to avoid anyone else having to.

The truth--though he was scarcely self-aware enough to know this for himself--was that he had come here under a cloud of such despair that he had simply been surviving. His soul had not been ready to take in anything else, and while he had not been able to die, living was hardly what he'd been doing, either.

"Games aren't just for children," she replied, her voice even. She didn't want to antagonize him, and she certainly didn't want to patronize him. Maybe they were just in very different points in their lives, but she couldn't imagine just sitting locked away in a hut all day, every day, for years on end. It was thoroughly depressing.

"You also didn't come here to sleep or fish, but you do those things. Because your body is telling you that you need to survive. And if you don't do something to make that survival worthwhile...." His body might just give out on him. Or his mind. And she couldn't take that.

"I've only just found you, Master Skywalker," she told him, giving him a small smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "I'm not going to do anything to risk losing you. So I don't care if we have to weave baskets or pick flowers or build a whole new hut from scratch; we're going to find something to do together and you're going to enjoy it, whether you like it or not."

Luke pressed a hand to the bridge of his nose. She didn't understand, and how could she? She was absolutely right, in a sense--it's what he would have told anyone else. But the point she wasn't getting was that survival wasn't worthwhile. He wasn't trying to live or stay sane. He was just... waiting.

For her, a tiny voice whispered before he could squash it. He wanted to fight her on this, but the fact was, she'd broken the spell he'd put himself under. He could no longer ignore the emptiness with her yelling about it. She made it tangible, and therefore, a problem.

He couldn't just pretend to already be dead. He'd tried. She'd woken him up, despite his best efforts.

"I mean," he said finally, "you don't have to coddle me like I'm a bored toddler. If you want to do something, I'll... I'll help."

It was begrudging but it was the best he could do. He was unready, and unwilling, to admit that he was awake or interested. The best he could do was pretend he was doing it for her sake.

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