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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Unfortunately for her, Luke was now connected to Rey, becoming familiar with her moods and expressions in a way that went beyond reading her face. And something was off, here. There was something she wasn't telling him.

"Back up," he said. "You said... what was it? 'Despite distance and not knowing exactly where they are.'" He nodded, sure he was right. "But I've only ever spoken to you while sitting right here." His brow furrowed. "What made you say that?" For now, it was only curiosity, not suspicion. But there had to be a reason those were the words she'd chosen.

"No, that's not-...." She was still shaking her head, still trying to deny it, but it would be no good to undo all the trust and risk breaking the bond they'd only just built over something like this.

Sighing softly, she looked down and replied, "It's nothing. I just... I saw something. It was probably just a nightmare or paranoia, but-... I just wanted to know if it was possible for it to be something else. That's all."

Luke was now searching her face as if he could read more in her expression, certain now that something was wrong.

"I think we both know the difference at this point between imagination and a vision," he said, his voice a low growl. It had to be something, or she wouldn't be looking away, wouldn't have hidden behind some vague need to know. "What did you see?"

"It was nothing," she insisted, not wanting to make a big deal out of it. "I'd just woken up and I was... frazzled. Distressed. And I... I thought I saw him. Kylo Ren."

Rubbing sheepishly at her arm, she lowly added, "That might be why that hut has a hole in it."

Luke dropped her hand like it burned him, unconsciously leaning away as if to put distance between them. "You saw Kylo Ren," he said flatly. She saw you, too, his brain supplied unhelpfully. It's not the same! he shot back. Sure it's not--but you think your connection to this girl has nothing to do with her connection to him?

Rey hated the way Luke arched back from her, immediately feeling tense all over as she looked at him desperately. "It was nothing!" she tried to insist. "Luke, please, it was probably just my imagination! Or even if it wasn't, it still didn't mean anything. It just... startled me. That's all."

"No," he said, shaking his head. "Nothing here means nothing. That's not how the Force works."

What was he supposed to do? Part of him wanted to walk away, like he'd done when she first showed up and he'd seen that darkness hovering around her. But the time for that was past--she was no longer a stranger, a cardboard figure to be dismissed. He'd let her in and this was, now, his problem as well.

And if his nephew had some sort of connection to her, and Luke had opened himself back up to the Force...

"I've put us all in danger," he muttered to himself. Rey had, really--but not by design. Just ignorance. "That's what you were digging for the whole time. The root of your connection to him." And what was that? What did they share, other than Luke's fear of their raw power? "You'd better tell me everything."

Rey wanted to keep insisting that Luke was overreacting, that they were in no danger whatsoever, but then, she had been concerned that these visions might end up revealing her location to the First Order. If Kylo Ren really could see her, then there was no telling what other information he might have gleaned from their brief interactions.

"It's not a connection," she told him adamantly. "I just... I saw him, that's all. Once just after my fight with him, when he was getting patched up. It was like looking through a window. He seemed just as surprised as I'd been, and then I went for my blaster, but... he was gone in an instant. And another time... I was outside by the Falcon and he was standing inside a room, and he spoke to me. Asked if I could see him. Then said he couldn't see me; he could, but not my surroundings. I think he was telling the truth."

What she didn't tell Luke about was Kylo's conversational tone, the same one he'd kept around her from the moment he'd proclaimed that she was a "guest" on Starkiller right up through their most recent strange Force bond. It sounded almost as though he'd been trying to reach out, and Rey was loath to guess at why that monster would want to befriend her.

"I'm sorry," she told Luke weakly, hating the sting of tears she felt at her eyes. "Please don't be upset. I just... I didn't want you to look at me and see him."

He felt cold. Dangling over the vent in Cloud City. Sitting in the smoldering remains of his school. Watching this girl with too much power casually discuss her link to the most powerful Force user Luke had ever known.

Empty.

But it was a different sort of empty from that which had drained him these past years. It was a void, yes, but a vacuum waiting to be filled. It was only left to decide with what. Anger? Fear? Betrayal? He sorted through them. Yes, he could feel all those things.

But that wasn't what the girl needed, and it wasn't what he'd sensed in her the night before, and it wasn't what rose to the surface when he looked at her. He wasn't sure what it was, but it was complicated. And he couldn't walk away from it anymore.

"How could I not?" he said dully. "The power. The arrogance. The belief you know better than I do about what I'll think, or feel. How can I help but see him, when you tell me you've been keeping this from me?"

Luke wasn't the only one feeling cold. Rey felt as though someone had dipped her in ice water, freezing her blood in her veins and turning her bones stiff and brittle. She'd felt the cold before, but it had always been something external and temporary, something that would pass with an extra layer wrapped around her. This sort of cold, though... there was no cure for that.

"I don't know anything!" she shot back once she found her voice. Her chest felt too tight to speak, but she forced herself to anyway, unwilling to let herself be silent now that all the cards were laid bare. "That's the point! I didn't ask for this, for any of it. I didn't even really believe in the Force until that monster abducted me and tried to force himself into my head! I don't know what's possible and what isn't possible, so I'm sorry that I wanted to learn what could be going on before I risked saying something that would upset you."

Unable to keep her voice from shaking, she concluded, "But don't you ever compare me with Han's murderer ever again. I am nothing like Kylo Ren."

But how was he supposed to give her answers, when he didn't know what the question was?

Luke shook his head, watching her sadly. For some reason, her anger shook him free of his own, rather than shoring it up. It only made him sad. Even in her denial, she reminded him of Ben Solo. And she didn't understand what that actually meant.

"Before you say that," he said with a detached sort of calm, "you should know what it means, for me to see him in you. You should know that he did not ask for it, either. That he was unable to tell me what he needed or feared until it was too late. That he became a monster only because I turned my back on him. That I am the reason he became Kylo Ren. You should know that when I see him in you, it is because I fear losing you as I lost him. I fear letting you down because you fear what I will think of you.

"You should know that when I look at you, I see the chance I missed, with him."

Rey didn't realize just how tense her entire body was until her jaw began aching, and she unclenched it somewhat reluctantly when she noticed that he was attempting to be reasonable rather than let himself get hurt or angry or scared, or whatever combination of emotions he felt when he thought of his nephew. She hated that he could still so easily say that he saw him in her, that he still saw some sort of similarity between her and the thing who'd murdered the first person who'd ever tried to reach out to her. But while she might not have known much about the Force, she knew enough to understand that giving in to her anger will only prove him right, will only act as another point she had in common with someone she detested and feared, and so she took a slow, shaky breath as she tried to clear her head and listen to what Luke was actually saying.

"He became Kylo Ren because he chose to," Rey replied hollowly. "He chose to put on a mask, he chose to kill, he chose everything. Even if you think you'd turned away from him, he was still the one who made a conscious choice to fall down the path to the dark side."

She had to believe that. Because so long as she could keep telling herself that it was all about choice, she could keep the worst of pain and anger reined in. Otherwise, it would become far too tempting to believe that she could be capable of doing terrible things because of other people or her lot in life, rather than hold herself accountable.

"I'm not going to make those choices, Luke. I don't want power or revenge or whatever it is he thinks he's gaining by being who he is. Don't look at me and see what you think of as your failures. See possibilities."

"You don't understand," he said, and now his expression had edged from blank to slightly... earnest. "That's what I mean."

Because there's someone else he saw in her, and that was himself. Isolated, confused, thrown this mantle of power with no instruction manual--and then offered a connection with a monster she didn't want associated with herself. It wasn't the same, and he knew it, but it was a way for him to understand what was happening to her. It was an avenue out of his own darkness, to reclaim some hope. For her.

"This isn't a rejection. Or an insult." He reached out, palm up. "It might have been, a few days ago. Am I upset that you hid this from me? Yes. That was a choice you made that was foolish and dangerous. But if he made a choice, so did my father. And my father chose to come back. I, too, have made choices. Some I stand by. Some, I regret. I will not choose, again, to turn on someone with a connection to something I fear, simply because I don't understand it."

Rey wanted to take his hand, but she kept herself back. He claimed it wasn't a rejection, but at the same time... what had become of the easy peace that had settled between them just moments ago? Why was he still calling whatever she and Kylo Ren had a connection?

Because that was what it was. She hadn't wanted to think of it that way, even though she'd known it had felt different from anything she'd ever experienced before. Even with Luke, that connection was something else entirely, something new and unique. She preferred it that way, really, since she wouldn't want to sully it by comparing it with this other aspect of her life, one that she didn't want and that could only prove dangerous before too long.

But she couldn't keep denying that it was a connection, not if she needed Luke's help to overcome it. And she did need Luke. In more ways than one.

At last, she slipped her hand into his, meeting his eyes so she had something to focus on so she wouldn't cry. "You're not the only one that's afraid," she pointed out softly. "My choices had always been decided for me by circumstance. This is the first time that I can't see where I'm going or what I need to do to get there, and that's... it's terrifying, Luke. I can't do this without you. Please don't make me."

When she had arrived, he had turned his back on her. It hadn't been her he'd been running from, of course, but himself. His own mistakes, his own fear of making things worse, his conviction that, if history repeated itself, his interference would create the evil in the world, not quell it.

It was too late for that, of course, and wrong besides. He saw that now. He had failed Ben Solo, not by interfering, but by allowing his fear to turn on him. He'd allowed a scared boy to run to the only truth he knew, the 'truth' Luke had created by giving into a vision. Fear was the way to the dark side. And Luke had almost gone down its path again, simply because this girl didn't know any better and he'd refused to be the one to let her down.

Ironic, wasn't it?

He wonders if Obi-Wan ever felt this kind of fear, dealing with him.

"I forget," he said softly, "what it was like, being you. Finding out you're supposed to do something grand, then finding out you're connected to the very thing that you're supposed to be fighting. Finding out that a wrong turn, a wrong choice, maybe a wrong thought could take you down an irreversible path. Having someone who is supposed to know better try to dictate your life and your choices for you."

He sighed, squeezing her fingers.

"My mentor left me before his time, killed by my own father, his protege. My own protege left me, betrayed by my fear as well as his own. I won't let that happen again."

Rey didn't know what was worse: Luke drawing parallels between her and his nephew, or Luke drawing parallels between her and himself. She could fight against becoming a monster, she could choose not to murder or manipulate or give in to any of her darker urges. But being compared to the Jedi that's still whispered about as being the single greatest hero the galaxy had ever known?

Even if Luke had never wanted that mantle, it was one he bore, and one that was far too heavy for Rey to bear herself. She couldn't be this generation's Luke Skyalker. Just being a nobody was hard enough, most days.

But that was all she could be. A nobody who was trying her hardest to be somebody, anybody, even if she didn't quite feel ready for it. "I won't either," she noted after she was sure her voice wouldn't waver again. "History won't repeat itself, Luke. I'll do better. I promise."

From where Luke was standing, Kylo Ren was not the monster Rey feared, and he himself was not the legend she revered. So neither comparison seemed particularly out of line. But more than that, it was the context he knew.

She probably didn't want to know how much she reminded him of his sister, under the circumstances.

"That's all I should have asked," he said gruffly. "Part of that, Rey, must be that you tell me about these visions, if they happen again. I won't be mad unless I know something important it being kept from me--it may mean nothing, but it may mean everything. But you must trust me." He swallowed, brow furrowing. "No," he amends slowly, "we must trust one another."

He couldn't protect her, the way he'd tried to protect Ben. The way Ben's namesake had tried to protect him. Both had failed.

Being compared to Leia Organa would have been another comparison that Rey didn't feel she deserved, but at least it felt as though it made a little more sense, if only because he knew how much Leia and Luke admired one another. She didn't flatter herself to think that he held them on the same level, but she could at least understand the similar admiration, given that they'd already discussed their mutual attraction.

"I do," she replied immediately. "Trust you, Luke. I do. I promise I'll let you know if I see or hear or even feel anything that's a little off."

Taking a slow, deep breath, she gave his hand a small squeeze as she nodded and concluded, "We have to be open with one another. About everything. We can't afford to complicate things more than they already are."

"Life always seems to find a way to do that," he muttered. It was not quite a joke--he'd used up his ability to roll with the punches early.

This development did alarm him. Whatever had passed between them, Ren should not be able to appear to her so clearly, and vice versa. And hadn't she said he'd seemed surprised, too? It bore more thinking on, and he'd have to determine the safest way to explore it without giving his own presence away.

Which meant she couldn't let on, either.

"Does he know you're with me?" And huffed a little, at the double meaning. "What I mean is, does he know where you are, or who you're with?"

Rey shook her head right away at his question, though it wasn't until he amended it that she realized there was another meaning behind it. She didn't quite flush, but she did duck her head slightly, looking vaguely sheepish.

"No," she answered, trying to get serious again. "He suspects that I've come to look for you, since the Resistance has been determined to find you before the First Order does. But he doesn't know where I am, or that we're actually together... in any sense."

The thought of the look on Kylo Ren's face should he ever find out about them was enough to force Rey to look down to conceal a small smile.

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

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

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

And, perhaps, why he had secluded himself here.

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

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

Rey couldn't help grinning at Luke's initial admonishment, though she did manage to grow serious when he stressed how important it was that his nephew not learn about... well, any of this. Looking up at him when he touched her face, Rey saw the sincerity in his eyes and mirrored them with her own, her gaze softening as she tilted her head towards his touch.

She was about to tell him that Kylo Ren wouldn't hurt him, wouldn't hurt either of them, that they'd make it through the threat of the First Order together, but before she could go on with her idealistic affirmations, he mentioned that he needed to show her how to close herself off from the Force. Even with his amendment, that still stung sharply, her body going tense with shock.

"Shut myself down-... from the Force? Entirely?" Even if it was only temporary, the thought of giving that much up when she'd only so recently realized what it was hurt more than she could say. "Couldn't I just... break whatever connection I have with him? Like flicking a switch on a console instead of powering down the entire ship?"

"That's not how the Force works," Luke grumbled. "It's not a machine, not something you can engineer or tinker with. It's a living thing." But his eyes narrowed as he thought about it, gaze wandering off for a moment as he looked into the middle distance, seeing nothing. "We don't know what the connection is. To break it, or to put it differently, to shield yourself just from him takes finesse."

Thus far, finesse was not a quality he associated with Rey. Stubbornness, determination, and an ability to throw herself headlong into danger, yes--all of which he admired.

"Ben and Yoda were able to hide themselves because they were Masters. Even then, they had some help from... environmental factors. Still..." He re-focused on her. "I may be able to teach you to dampen your output. If only we knew what the connection was. What allowed it. Visions like that, over distance... It's not like anything I've ever seen before..."

Rey almost brought up that people were living things and could technically be tinkered with, and he proved as much with that hand of his. But considering that she still didn't know how he'd gotten it and would prefer not to risk bringing up any sensitive subjects (again), she let that much slide, especially since she was more concerned about that look on Luke's face.

She didn't like being an anomaly. It wasn't a new experience for her, not by any means, but that didn't make it much easier to bear, especially considering how out of her depth she was in this instance.

"But it's not impossible," she added expectantly, wanting some confirmation that there was nothing special that uniquely tied her to the most dangerous man in the galaxy. "It might be rare, but that could also mean that it's just... just some sort of fluke. Kylo-...." She paused, then, momentarily distracted by something he'd just said.

"Ben? That's what Han called-... but he wasn't a Jedi Master before he turned, was he?" She had no idea what officially made one a Master, but if it was a matter of expertise in the Force, then there was almost no way that she would be able to go up against someone of that level.

"Nothing's impossible," Luke said gruffly, then shook his head. "That sounds stupid, but... what I mean is, I should know by now not to discount anything at first sight." He paused at the look on her face, hoping there was some tidbit she'd left out, something that would piece this together for him.

What she said was something entirely different, and the fact she had to ask somehow hit him with a pang of fresh regret. For lost family, lost chances. For the gulf between what Ben had become, and what he'd been named for.

"No," he said softly. "Of course, you don't know. Ben Solo was the name his parents gave him. I pushed for it, knowing I was never..." He cut himself off. "Ben Kenobi was the name Obi-Wan Kenobi took when he lived on Tatooine, looking over me as a boy from afar. Not the cleverest pseudonym, but it's how I first knew him. Not a Jedi Master, but an old hermit my uncle warned me to stay away from. Ben... Ben was the first person to tell me who I really was." He'd left out a lot, but Luke had long since forgiven him for that. "And the first person to believe in me, and show me the ways of the Force. I followed him to the Rebellion, to Leia, to..." He spread his hand. "Too the world. And, of course, he was the reason Han and Leia had met. So it seemed natural, to name their son for him."

He fell silent, lost in memories. He was the age now that Ben had been when they'd met. And that gulf, too, loomed behind him.

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