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 opened his eyes, meeting hers finally, and the conviction in them was plain.

"No," he said. "I saw what he would become, and I did not give him the consideration I gave the man who had murdered my family. I saw potential, and I allowed him to be overtaken by Snoke's influence. I was not there for him. The Jedi way teaches detachment, discipline, balance. I foolishly thought I could do better than those who had taught me. I foolishly assumed nothing like Vader could ever happen again. And I was so horrified by the possibility that I... I did nothing but ensure his fall."

He put his hand over hers where it rested on his arm.

"So you see, there is no way but your own, Rey. I don't have the answers. I don't even..."

"You didn't allow for this to happen!" she told him, trying to keep her voice low. She didn't want him to think that she was angry or frustrated, didn't want to give him any reason to shut her out again. But it was important that he understand her.

"Everyone has their own choices to make. Ben Solo made his choice. Whether he could eventually make a new choice and be redeemed the way Vader had, I don't know. But he's with the First Order now because he chose to be there.

"And I-... I choose to be here. I won't fail you the way he had."

She stepped in a little closer, the determination in her eyes palpable as she told him, "You might not have answers, but you have experience, and that's worth more than anything that could ever be taught in a traditional lesson. I didn't come here for a legend, for a myth, not even for a mentor. I came here because I needed someone who could make me feel less afraid of what was happening inside me. I don't feel afraid at all when I'm with you, Luke."

The shadow of Yoda--thankfully, only imagined--cackled a bit at that.

"Then you're a fool," Luke said sadly, without any bite. "And you're not listening. Ben didn't fail me. I failed him. Whatever his choices after--I failed him. And I don't have any experience to take away that fear."

If anything, his fear had only grown over the years. His youthful idealism shattered by expectation and loss.

And yet. He knew, with certainty, that he could not turn her away. Not with a personal plea such as that. Now that she'd wormed her way past his defenses, he was not capable of outright denying the connection.

"I'm listening," she told him solemnly. "You're not."

She sighed softly, shaking her head. "I don't know how Ben turned into Kylo Ren, and I'm fairly sure no one does for sure except for Ben. But you didn't create the thing that had killed Han Solo, no more than Han had himself. Ben might have perceived some of your words or actions a certain way, but you hadn't set out to create a monster. Snoke had. Snoke is the real enemy here, and I'm not a fool for acknowledging that. Whatever mistakes you'd made in your past don't change how I feel about you in the present. Remember that, Luke."

Granted, she didn't know the full extent of his supposed mistakes, but she still had enough of a pristine image of Luke Skywalker being a hero that even seeing him as an embittered older man hadn't taken away from her conviction that he was one of the good guys.

One of the good guys.

She wasn't projecting it in words, of course, but there was a warmth coming through that made her intent plain. And it made Luke want to shake his head, simultaneously shamed and buoyed by her faith, and its relative simplicity.

"Just because events transpire differently than we intend," he said, "doesn't absolve us of responsibility for them. You're still looking for a man who isn't here." He sighed, and looked over at her. "But I'm too tired to push you away, Rey." Not just old, not just deprived of sleep. But too weak to deny a new seed that had taken root in soil too long left fallow. "And I am sorry. For what I said earlier. I am... not much used to company."

He was stubborn, that much was obvious. But Rey had had to fight against tougher terrain than him. And survival had taught her how to be every bit as stubborn as he apparently was.

His apology was met with a downcast look and a slow nod. It had hurt, hearing that Luke thought of her as a child, but she wasn't going to prove him right by focusing on a bit of heated name-calling. Instead, she peered up at him, giving him a small, wry smile. "It's fine. I'm not exactly used to being company."

She took a breath to shake that off, straightening up as she gestured towards where he'd apparently been trying to sleep. "What I see is a man who tries to carry too much weight on his shoulders. You couldn't carry the weight of the galaxy on them half a lifetime ago, and you certainly can't be expected to do that now. No one can. So I'll stop bothering you if you promise to catch up on your rest and stop being weighed down by the past, at least for a little while."

Luke and Leia had both already had their turn at saving the galaxy, and Han had lost his life just trying to save his son. Rey wasn't going to lose anyone else, not when it was her turn to shoulder a bit of that responsibility. It was, after all, her galaxy too.

Foolish girl, he thought. But the thought was almost fond, recognizing the will of one who waded in to a situation without knowing what she was getting into, knowing only that she was part of it. How could he, of all people, deny that? Had he listened when his betters had feared he was moving too quickly?

Had he, after all, failed because he had tried not to be all the things Ben Kenobi and Yoda had warned him he was, and not because he was those things? The idea was a potentially life-changing one, and he backed away from it, for now. Instead, he found himself, smiling down (not too far down, really) and Rey and briefly touching his fingers to her chin as she looked up at him.

The skin contact was unexpected, even to him, because he had not consciously sought it. But he lingered on it only a moment, before his hand dropped, apparently having seen what he needed. She was determined, and she was honest. She had made a decision about him and he could not dislodge it.

"I don't need a mother," he said dryly. "But I will promise... to try."

Rey still wasn't used to sensing other people's feelings, or at least, she wasn't used to acknowledging that that was what she was feeling. She just thought she could get a sense of another person's approval or disapproval through nothing but body language and other small clues, and it was probably for the best that she didn't try attributing that to the Force and becoming overtly conscious of it.

Because really? She liked the sense of fondness she got from Luke, liked it more than she really should. It made it so she hardly thought about it at all when his fingertips brushed along her chin, and she didn't realize it had happened until he moved his hand away. And even then... she only realized it because she suddenly found herself missing the contact.

She blinked, surprised at herself, given that she'd never been overly fond of being touched. But maybe she'd just never known anyone that she'd wanted to touch her. Even with Finn, she'd had to get used to the fact that he simply grabbed her hand or hugged her out of relief. But with Luke....

Luke was different. And she simply didn't have the social aptitude to actually piece together how.

"You can do better than try," she told him once she decided to push that aside for now. Her voice was every bit as wry as his as she put a hand on his arm, gently nudging him. "Go on. Don't make me watch you all night and... do whatever it is that mothers do."

She knew that most children had some sort of bedtime ritual with her parents, though if she knew that as part of some hazy memory from before she'd been abandoned, it wasn't a strong enough memory to tell her what, exactly, that was.

"I wouldn't know, either," Luke said gently, with a smile. "But I doubt it's watching me while I sleep. Go on, now. You've... done your duty. Get some rest."

There was no graceful way to end this conversation, especially with her standing in his hut, but once she left he would lay down again. He wasn't sure he could sleep, after all that, but he was more exhausted than he knew, and eventually drifted off.

As confused as his thoughts and feelings were around Rey's presence on the island, one thing she definitely was not to him was a mother. And contrary to his outburst and her own fears, he did not exactly see her as a child. Perhaps if he'd been around society more, he'd have been more cognizant of what his own age meant, but as worn and out of it as he was, there was a part of him that had, perhaps, never grown up. In truth, he had skipped something between the farm and the rebellion hero, some stage that he'd never really passed through.

Not that he was conscious of any of this. No, it took his subconscious and the admonition to sleep to manifest. And, perhaps, not a little bit the connection itself, morphing within dreams into a form that made physical the metaphysical link between them.

Finally dead to the world, Luke's mind was no less active, in a way he had not experienced in many years. He'd been alone for so long. And before that, he'd kept everyone at arm's length, as well as kept his mind and desires tightly regulated lest anything get past his barriers to disturb his charges. Without that practice, and with new material, suddenly his imagination took liberties he never would have guessed.

The images and sensations were dim and abstract, at first. Just fleeting touches, a tingle of aroused nerves, warmth traveling the unmapped course of his body. Gentle and tentative, almost shy with lack of practice. But the ambiguity did not last long. There was only one focus for such feeling, after this day, and his sleeping brain caught glimpses of her. Smiling up at him, hand on his arm, scooting closer. Body and spirit both bending to touch his, to get closer, to take more than the taste they'd fumbled for platonically that afternoon.

It was more a feeling than specific acts. Union. Togetherness. Warmth, but a heat that touched parts of him long forgotten except for where he had to maintain the basics of life. Flashes of hands, lips, of awkward rhythms enhanced by shared energies, minds brushing along with skin. Two souls, needing connection, finding it in each other.

When he woke, it was with a sheen of sweat and a sickening sense of guilt at the twist his mind had put on her kindness. She had shown him compassion, and it had taken less than a day for him to make it into something dirty and selfish. That it was not like him did not matter. Nor did it occur to him to wonder if it was entirely of his own doing--the idea that she might have something to do with it was unfathomable. No, this was Luke, dirty old man, taking advantage of a young person's trust in his legend yet again.

And further proof he could not be trusted about other people. Further proof, unlooked for, that something was very wrong with him and he was not worth saving.

Rey wasn't so socially awkward that she didn't know when a conversation had come to a natural end, and so she nodded, bidding Luke goodnight before leaving the hut. She didn't think she'd be able to sleep now, but maybe her conversation with Luke had quieted some of her anxiety. Whatever the case, it hadn't taken very long at all for her to drift off as well.

While Rey had been forced to grow up quickly while fending for herself on Jakku, there were some very important bits of growing up and adulthood that she'd just never experienced. Puberty had been a hell of a time for her, for example. Her body had begun changing in ways that she'd considered flat-out horrific, and if not for the fact that there was the occasional village of humans that she'd come across during her scavenging trips, she would have been convinced that there was something wrong with her. But she'd had things explained to her very patiently, and the physiological aspects of it had eventually made sense to her.

But there were other things, other feelings and sensations and emotions, that she'd just been unable to explain. Logically, from the point of it being a reproductive drive, it had made enough sense to her. But she'd never been interested in any person she'd ever known, and so alleviating those feelings in her bunk had been confusing and unfulfilling, given that she'd never had anyone to focus them on.

Not until now, apparently.

She'd heard of Luke ever since she was little, but now, actually knowing him as a person, he'd evolved into a fully fleshed-out being, someone warm and brave and wise and humble. That brief touch of his fingers against her chin carried over into touches that lingered longer, traveling lower over her body, satisfying her in a way that her own touches had never been able to.

Satisfied as she might feel, though, she knew there was something missing, something just beyond her grasp. She had no practical knowledge of how this worked, no real experience with a man that didn't involve violent combat, but somehow, she could feel Luke guiding her the same way he had when he was teaching her to connect with him. Only this connection was much deeper, much more intimate, and her desire to learn from him was even more passionate now than it had been when she'd convinced him to train her in the Force.

It wasn't until she woke up that she realized just how much the hazy sensations and longings had affected her, and when she saw just where her hand had slipped into as she slept, she felt a wave of embarrassment wash over her. She immediately looked to the door, and once she ascertained that there was no one there, she hastily fixed herself and stepped outside into the morning sunlight, making her way to a water basin to wash her hands and splash enough cold water onto her face to get her bearings straight.

It took Luke a little longer to emerge. Having woken at the same moment--though neither knew it--there was a certain discomfort he did not wish to bring out into daylight with him, even if the robes hid a multitude of sins. Even so, he took care of it the Jedi way, willing his body into submission in a way he had not had to do in some time. He'd thought this had simply been age, though his drive in that area had never been strong. As it turned out, given a target, however inappropriate, everything was apparently still in working order.

He'd have to face her again, of course, and he would. But how could he forgive himself for this betrayal, hidden and victimless as it was? How could he continue to teach her, interact with her, to abuse her trust when apparently he harbored some craven desire to touch her in a way that she could never return and which he was damned for imagining, even inadvertently? She had opened herself up to him and he had run with it, in a way he'd never experienced before, much less with someone young enough to be his--

No. The only thing to do was to banish it from his mind. Hopefully, his body would follow. She could not know, for to apologize for this in any way was to impose his perverse impulses upon her. He could only hope that it had been a fluke born of too long apart from people, that it was a dream in the way dreams often manifested parallels to truth rather than actual reality. He would forget about it, and she would, soon, become satisfied with what he had to teach and leave. It was the only answer.

Composed at last, he emerged, shields intact though somehow he knew exactly where she was as if his internal compass was now magnetically aligned to her north. At least, he thought, any embarrassment could be interpreted as shame for his behavior the night before. And he'd thought that had been reprehensible. If only he'd known.

"Rey," he nodded stiffly, taking his turn at the basin. What did he say? He could barely look at her, not with his banished thoughts so fresh in his mind, but to run now would be to invite her to follow. And he could not afford to have her ask what was wrong, now.

Just as Rey realized how thankful she was that she hadn't shared yet another inadvertent connection with Kylo Ren and ended up letting that monster see her in such a compromising position upon her waking up, she heard a voice behind her, and she jumped in surprise. Of course Kylo Ren would see her at her lowest, of course he would ask after it with barely-veiled amusement. He might even think that he'd been the subject of such dreams, because after all, that would make more sense than her fantasizing about his uncle.

But even as Rey realized who'd spoken to her, she also came to the realization that Kylo Ren might have been able to sense her dreams if he'd been watching her. He'd claimed to have been able to do it before. While that was mortifying in its own right, she suddenly became aware of the fact that Luke, too, may have sensed it, might have known that his student had thought impure things about him... as much as she could, really, given her lack of experience in these matters. For a moment, she could do nothing but watch him at the basin, trying not to stare and scrambling to try and hide her panic and her shame.

But while she was good at hiding specific thoughts, she'd always been something of an open book when it came to emotions, and Rey knew that. Still, she did her best to clamp down on it, not wanting to give Luke any reason to pry or make him think that she was somehow still upset over their exchange the night before. It was bad enough that she found herself looking over his features and deciding that no, it wasn't so strange that she would think of him, especially not in comparison to Kylo Ren. Luke had more than enough good qualities, but dwelling on them only made certain feelings spark up all over again.

"Good morning, Luke," she said, words a bit too quick to be natural. Searching for something to say so he wouldn't end up listening to something she didn't want him to hear, she eventually managed to tug the corners of her lips up into a small, strained smile as she asked, "Sleep well?"

Did she know? She was acting strange, but then, maybe that was his imagination, colored by his own shame. He certainly wasn't ascribing any of her behavior to anything but his own failings, but the way she asked after his sleep, could she possible have seen--

But no. No, she'd left him with an admonition to sleep, so it was perfectly innocent. On her part, anyway. She was treating him gingerly because he'd thrown a fit last night, like a petulant child. Part of him wished she'd stop calling him 'Luke,' though yesterday it had been all he could ask for, that she'd stop with the 'Master' nonsense. Now his first name felt like an unearned intimacy.

"Yes," he managed, after a too-long pause where he stared without actually seeing her. "Yes. Sleep. It was..." He caught himself, swallowing, started again. "I have to apologize for my behavior last night. It was... unbecoming as a man and a... as a ... host."

Fantastic, Skywalker. Is this really the best you can do? It wasn't the first time he'd confronted someone after some awkward dreams but it certainly had never been quite this inappropriate a subject. And, like everything else, he was grossly out of practice.

Not getting an immediate answer out of Luke made her nervous, and she could feel the anxiety fluttering about in her belly even as he answered, his response sounding stilted and unnatural. Did he know? Had she unwittingly left it written all over her face? Did he know the look of a woman who'd just had that sort of dream?

Of course, that left her wondering about Luke's last relations, if he'd ever allowed himself to have any. He must have, as she couldn't imagine him going without all these years. Not because sex was a particularly exciting thing, not as far as she knew, but... well, he was attractive even as an older man. When he'd been her age, he must have had his pick of women.

Maybe it was a strange sense of jealousy telling her that that wasn't so, or perhaps it was because she had the impression that loneliness had enshrouded him for far longer than just his time on Ahch-To. Still, regardless of his personal experience in this matter, she shouldn't be thinking about it. He was a teacher, a mentor... and he was also old enough to be her father. No wonder he'd called her a child.

"Host?" She frowned a little, almost as though she didn't understand the word, then told him, "I don't think you have to worry about being a good host when your so-called guest was uninvited and invasive and-...." Thoroughly inappropriate, she almost said, but she stopped herself, not wanting to risk him asking after what she'd done that was so inappropriate.

She looked down, feeling awkward and skittish and wondering just how much of what she'd done (or, rather, what her subconscious had done) was plain on her face. "You have nothing to apologize for," she told him softly. "I'm just glad you were able to get some rest."

He could shield his thoughts from her, and he could summon his discipline to keep conscious memories of his dreams at bay. But for some reason, he could not keep himself from noticing things that, yesterday, had meant far less. The way her sun-reddened skin was interrupted by freckles. The way her mouth turned down defiantly when she wasn't thinking about it. The breeze catching at stray hair and the ends of her clothes. Things that, by themselves, were not inherently sexual but which he could not help thinking he was being a pervert by noticing, after last night.

And the way she was acting, almost as if she knew. She couldn't look at him, and her manner had altered substantially since the previous day. Had he really ruined everything with his outburst, or did she somehow get wind of his private thoughts?

And since when was her abandoning him ruining anything? Since when was her leaving 'abandonment' in his mind? When had he decided he wanted her to stay? This could not stand--he could not, in good conscience, allow her to remain here with his thoughts preying on her even in secret. It was reprehensible, a betrayal of her mission and his and the whole master/padawan covenant.

But you never really accepted her as a student, did you?

Shut up, he told himself. You are not going to start making excuses for this being okay, which was totally beside the point that in no universe was someone like her going to think he was--

"Did you?" he asked abruptly, to interrupt his own thoughts. "Rest, I mean."

Rey had come here with the explicit intention of bringing Luke back with her and had eventually tacked on the more selfish mission of getting some basic Jedi tension out of him while she was here. The thought of leaving the island without him was unfathomable. Leia depended on her. The Resistance depended on her. The galaxy depended on her.

But once she stripped away all of that lofty reasoning... Rey simply didn't want to leave him.

The island wasn't the most hospitable, but Luke had managed to carve a life out for himself here, and she'd had to survive in a much harsher environment. She'd forced herself to find the beauty in Jakku just as he'd come to find the beauty of Ahch-To... and he'd been willing to share it with her in that field the day before. That had meant a lot to her; perhaps enough to make her feel a bond with him that she'd never been able to make with anyone before.

That was all it was, she told herself logically. If she did have feelings for him, it was because this was the most time she'd spent solely with one person, and they were borne more out of affection than any kind of real desire.

Reach between your legs and see if you don't find evidence to the contrary, a small voice chided her.

Shut. Up.

She felt her face heat up as she argued with herself, but she tried to fight it, allowing herself to seem surprised by Luke's abrupt question. "I... slept," she replied pragmatically.

While touching myself.

SHUT! UP!

Quickly, as though needing to say something, anything, to interrupt the progressively heated conversation going on inside her own head, she said, "I just had a lot of dreams, that's all. It made it a little hard to rest properly."

The combination of the word 'dreams' and the flush rising to her cheeks put him on guard again. Was it just his imagination, or did she look shifty and unable to meet his eyes? And was that because he was Master Skywalker, or because he was a lecherous old man?

Luke wasn't terribly concerned about his reputation at this point, but he was damned if he'd let this be the last word. He would fight this, somehow. With time, both the dreams and the memories would fade and he could... what?

Where did he think this was going?

"I'm sorry," he said, though of course she could not know he was apologizing for potentially violating her trust in sleep. "I'll... let you rest, then, since..." He cast about for some reason he needed to be busy today. "I have things I need to do. Food. To gather."

Rey hadn't even realized that she'd mentioned dreams, and if she'd been more focused on what she was saying and less on what she was thinking - or rather, pointedly not thinking - she would have never uttered the word. But luckily, Luke hadn't asked after what kind of dreams they were, even as that inner voice of hers tried to insist that she'd sort of been hoping he would ask so she could simply say it and get it out in the open.

"It's not your fault," she told him, and that was, technically, true. It was the fault of her own loneliness, and she wasn't going to let Luke even tangentially take the blame.

She was almost relieved when he said he had things to do, but the greater part of her was unmistakably disappointed. She inwardly cursed that loneliness of hers that made Luke's company so damnably pleasurable for her, in more ways than one.

"Do you... need company?"

The question was soft, almost hesitant, but Rey did indeed want to spend time with him if she could. Being alone now felt suffocating, especially when she no longer had to worry just about the possibility of Kylo Ren encroaching on her thoughts but also now fretted over whether she'd find her thoughts wandering towards something more inappropriate. Maybe being with Luke would keep her from dwelling on any potentially embarrassing thoughts... and if not, maybe she can just outright die from the embarrassment and not have to worry about anything anymore.

"No."

Did he need company? It was the most absurd question Luke thought he'd been asked since the last question Rey had asked him. What was he supposed to do? Spend the day fishing and foraging next to her, like nothing had happened? Or spend the day imagining what she was doing, wondering where she was, thinking--

"I mean, I'm fine. I don't need help. I've... done this before."

It was a fairly lame explanation, all things considered.

The negative response caught her so off-guard that she almost jumped. Oh. Oh no. She'd made him uncomfortable. They'd been getting on the day before, but now he'd seen what she'd dreamed of or could at least feel the painfully obvious vibes coming off of her, and he didn't want to be anywhere near her.

She didn't know if he could see the surprised disappointment in her eyes or if he'd just had a belated surge of etiquette. Either way, his explanation didn't really help matters, even if she uncertainly nodded.

"I understand that. But I didn't ask if you needed help. I asked if you needed company. Or if you just want me. For company. If you want me for company."

Oh stars, but she was awful at this sort of thing.

Luke stare at her, aghast. But not so much at what she'd said as at what it made him think, which was surely not at all what she'd meant. Innocently misspeaking, twisted by his diseased and, at this point, probably deranged mind.

She knew. She had to know--there was no other reason for her to correct herself so quickly. Why was she being polite about it? Did she fear his reaction, if she called him out?

Was he that much of a monster? Was she afraid to go, and afraid to stay? Luke took an inadvertent step back. How could he put her off without just being rude again? "No. No, I... it's not necessary. If you need rest you should stay here. Without me in your... way."

That step back made it obvious to Rey that her slip hadn't gone unnoticed, and she closed her eyes, silently berating herself. Lovely. Perfect. She'd finally found someone who could understand and explain the Force and what it meant for her, and she had to go and turn an innocent friendship into something resembling a childish crush. He was probably worried about making her burst into tears or do something else equally immature if he turned her down point blank, which meant that she should probably address this sooner rather than later.

... though later did have a nicer ring to it.

"I'm not going to get any rest and you're not going to get in my way, especially not when this is your home. I'm sorry. I'm a little... out of sorts this morning. It doesn't mean I value your companionship any less. But if you'd rather be on your own, I'll of course respect your wishes."

This was sounding far too formal, contrary to the comfortable way they'd talked the day before. She missed the casualness of it all, but maybe this would help put some distance between them and sharpen those blurry lines in between what they were supposed to be to one another versus... whatever it was that Rey seemed to want them to be.

He'd ruined everything. And he didn't know how to fix it. He didn't know how to make her comfortable, or deny what she must have seen, or tell himself that this was all a mistake since he'd apparently decided that any connection to a human being had to stand for every connection.

His wishes didn't deserve respect. From anyone.

"My companionship," he said a little hoarsely, "leaves much to be desired. I was rude yesterday. I am not going to demand you stay away from me, even if I thought it would do any good. But you are under no obligation to entertain an old man. Nor do I think I am in any state to... teach you."

Depends on what you'd be teaching, his brain--or part of it, anyway--offered helpfully.

She didn't know why his words sounded so fatalistic, not when she'd obviously been the one to mess everything up. It was especially bad that her brain tried to purposely misconstrue everything he'd said: his companionship was very desirable, he could demand whatever he wanted from her, she'd entertain him any he'd like if she thought she were actually any good at it.

But the only thing she thought safe to answer was that last one, and even that had to be phrased carefully, given her inner struggle.

"I think there's no limit to what you could teach me."

She felt herself go warm at that again, a flush that she couldn't just package up and hide away from view. She knew she was a mess, she knew that he was either perfectly aware of why she was so awkward today or else he was left utterly in the dark. Either way, she took a deep breath and forced herself to make eye contact with him, not wanting him to think that she was completely uncomfortable in his presence now.

"Neither of us are good with... well, people. But I think having that in common means that we understand one another in a way that we don't understand others, or in a way others don't understand. So I'm not just 'entertaining' anyone, especially since I don't see an old man here. I see a man who could be my friend, if the circumstances allow for it."

Or more, that little voice cheerfully piped up, but she managed to shut up before that voice had any sway.

It was around here that Luke realized he'd lost. He wasn't sure what, exactly, the game had been, but he was entirely without the upper hand and he knew it. Every sentence out of her mouth was subject to gross misinterpretation by him, and the way she flushed and made a point of eye contact only further established that she knew.

What could he do? He could not call her on it, admitting to his own craven thoughts and thus driving her away for good. And he could not purposefully drive her away after that little speech, even if his body wanted very much to interpret it in a way she could not have meant. To deny her now, after her words of understanding and friendship, was to be cruel in a way he could not cover as unintentional. He was trapped between her innocent devotion and his own misplaced desires, and the only possible course was to give in--to her. Let her set the path and the tone and meditate away the follies of midnight. He could put this all behind him because, in truth, he was not strong enough to throw away a declaration that, even without the dreams, would have brought tears to his eyes.

She was utterly wrong, of course, to put that kind of emotional energy into someone like him. But he could no more stop her than he could stop the wind.

"One day," he said quietly, "you'll have friends enough that you don't have to rely on the one other person on an island for that." He shook his head. "But I'm not going to fight you any longer, Rey." After everything she must have seen, for her to offer something like this... he'd be a fool to throw it away.

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