Luke opens his eyes. It's morning, as seen by the growing light inside the small house he's taken as his own ever since he arrived here. The stone walls radiate cold, which even seeps under his blankets. Ahch-To once had seasons. Now it retains the same, clammy chill every day.
There have been days he's stayed in bed and spent the whole morning lost in memories of better times. He closes his eyes, not dreaming, simply walking himself through paths long since left behind. The day he met Han, Chewie, and Leia, and lost Uncle Owen, Aunt Beru, then Obi-Wan and Biggs. Love and loss are always entwined. He's still learning to accept the trade.
Most mornings, he chooses to rise, washing out his mouth with the tasteless water from the house's well before fixing his breakfast from the supplies he brought with him.
He packed for a month. He's been here six years, by his best estimate, not that it matters.
Luke lingers over breakfast. It's the only meal he'll eat today.
He steps outside. The grey skies offer little cheer. In about an hour, they'll crack open with tiny, darting ships firing death down onto his small island, as they have every day since he arrived. In the meantime, he can poke through the ruins of the temple, continuing his endless search for answers to questions he hasn't finished formulating.
Something went wrong. In truth, everything went wrong, in little stages. Viewed from a particular point of view, few things had been right since the day he'd been born. The first great loss had come only minutes after his birth, and the second a few hours later. He understands the reasoning behind the decisions made, why the two of them had been separated, and where they had been sent. He would not give up one memory of his aunt and uncle for anything, nor would he deny Leia the time she shared with the parents who loved her and raised her, but that was the first misstep of their lives. When they met again, they hadn't known and couldn't have known why they both felt an instant connection. When they found out why, it was years too late to stop. Han loved them both, and maybe he understood and maybe he didn't, but he couldn't have stopped if he'd tried, either, and he hadn't tried. They'd run on the edge of the curve, holding one another together. But Leia belonged first to her career, and Han belonged first to the sky, and Luke belonged always to the Force, and no one could run forever, not even holding each other, not and a child, too.
He's here for that boy, here for answers, here for the only question worth answering: how to bring Ben back to the Light, back to his family, back home.
Luke spends his hour every day, and he finds no answers.
The ghosts come.
Luke isn't the only one who came for answers. Generations of Jedi, and others, have stepped through these ancient doorways in search of lore, knowledge, wisdom, power. He doesn't know who the most solid ghosts are, only that they walk through him as easily as their more smokelike counterparts.
One can touch him. Every morning, his breakfast still digesting, she finds him in the library, or still in his lonely cot, or walking along the shore hoping he can find a means to flee this planet.
"Hurry!" she says, grabbing his hand and forcing Luke to run at her side. "They're here!"
Every day, he follows her, not knowing her name or her reasons for coming to Ahch-To, or even her species. The small ships sail out of the cloud banks high above them, and the other ghosts scatter, running and screaming from the shots fired. He feels the ground rumble from the blasts, and watches as a few hardy souls stand their ground, sending shock waves of Force energy back at their attackers.
He's tried. Nothing works. He is both present and not in this battle from out of time.
Beside him, his new friend shivers. She's terrified, even as she clutches her weapon, squeezing off shots as the ships close in.
Some days, they run away and survive for hours. Other days, they don't get the chance before she's cut down by enemy fire. Luke feels her pulse flutter and still under his fingers, and he closes her eyes. Every day. After that, he runs, or he stands and waits for the next shot to strike him. It doesn't matter. He always feels the shot, bright and burning through his chest, no matter how well he hides from the spectral attackers.
Then he wakes in his borrowed house, and the wheel turns round again.
He can't leave. His ship hasn't worked since the day he arrived, either caught by the warped time trapping them all, or just broken. Any repairs he makes are undone by the following loop.
"What's your name?" he asks her today, but she doesn't answer. She's too frightened, or she doesn't hear him.
"Who are they?" he asks her the next time.
"Where do you think we are? When do you think we are? Why are they attacking?"
No answers, just as in the temple.
He changes his focus in his morning searches. He tries to find one of the names of this planet, one that gives him some clue who the ghosts are, both fighting and fleeing. Nothing.
A circle is a wheel that turns and turns, and now he has been here seven years.
A different ghost arrives, on a ship from out of his dreams. She hands him his lightsaber, the first one, the one that lost him a hand and his whole self-identity. He can't speak to her, nor to the friends she's brought with her, and when the tiny ships attack, Luke can only stand there and watch the strange girl die, watch the Falcon die, before his ghostly friend grabs his hand and tells him to run.
He wonders if they will come back tomorrow.
"How do we end this?" he asks his ghost.
For the first time, she looks at him as though she really sees him. "You do."
The girl comes back with his lightsaber the next day, holding it out to him with a plea for answers he doesn't have. Luke watches her die again. She's new, and Chewbacca is only a few steps away, and they are trapped here with him. This is intolerable.
The ghost takes his hand. "Hurry! They're here!"
Luke pulls his hand away. He watches the terror on her face, hears the roar of the engines in the sky.
He has his old lightsaber back. It lights with a familiar hum. His ghostly friend doesn't even have time to scream before Luke cuts her down with his father's blade.
Behind him, he hears the fighters come in. He feels the shot, burning him, killing him.
Luke closes his eyes.
When he opens them, it's morning. The very first thing he notices is the slant of unfiltered sunshine through the high, narrow window, which hits the far wall with a bright glow.
Daylight. He's never seen the sun once on this world.
The next thing he sees is the doorway to the small room where he's set up his cot and his things. There's someone standing these. He's seen enough ghosts not to startle at another person, only wonder at the change in the story.
She steps in, and for a moment, Luke sees his ghost friend, and wonders if she's come for her revenge.
It's not the ghost.
"If you tell me you've spent all this time sleeping, I'm going to smack you," Leia says, her face caught in a dozen emotions that Luke can feel from here. He would like to say he's up in an instant, but his bones are chilled, and he's not as young as he used to be. By the time she reaches his cot, he's managed to sit up and swing his legs over the edge.
He wonders if he's finally gone mad. He wonders if she's real, or the last gasp of his brain slowly dying from poisoned well water. He wonders if she'll vanish when she reaches out to take his hand, and he grasps back.
She's real. She's warm. And the sun is shining.
Luke stands, and in a moment, he's embracing Leia as though they've never parted, and it doesn't matter which one is weeping, because Luke has found his answer right where he always does.
end