Author's Note: Thank you so much to my wonderful beta readers, Eriathalia and Purple Shamrock 17! All Chapters have been edited and there will be a new update by the end of the day. This story is completely AU (at least going by JJ Abrams' latest comments), but I hope you enjoy it anyway. Thank you for reading and reviewing!
He already loved her when she was no more than a delicate presence and a fluttering heart that he fretted over, spoke to, and dreamed about. At first, he had been filled with anxiety and fear. How could he dare to bring an innocent life into the world that would be in danger simply because she was his daugher? How could he, who had only known a parent's love in the last moments of his own father's life hope to give this child all she needed and deserved? And wasn't he too old for this? Often, he would lie awake long after his wife,Kira, had fallen asleep and wonder what his child would think of him, what she would look like, whether her eyes would be blue or hazel. Each night, he would go to sleep and dream of her. Perhaps they were visions of the future or just the naive hopes of a man who never thought he would be a father. Every morning, his first thoughts were of her as he watched his wife sleeping and tried to sense the presence that grew stronger every day, sending her waves of love, comfort, and warmth.
One day, that fragile presence spoke to him. Not in words, but in a primitive flood of emotions, colors, and sensations. At first, he drew back and gasped, overwhelmed. She watched him, bemused and ran her hands and ran her hands through his hair when he rested his head on her belly, lifting it only long enough to whisper with an expression of wonder on his face, "She talked to me."
They talked about naming her after Leia, Shara Bey, or possibly a member of her mother's family. Ultimately, they decided that she should have a name that was her own, free of any burdens or expectations. He had been delighted when Kira felt the first kick and hurriedly pressed his hand to her stomach. The small movement caused his wide, blue eyes to fill with tears. "She's so strong. Like her mother."
"And her father," she answered, thumb tracing his cheekbone.
Luke smiled, looking every bit the farm boy from long ago at the he kissed her and drew her close to his side.
They had argued a little about whether it was safe for her to grow up at the Academy, about her mother continuing to be a pilot. She zipped her flight suit up that day and growled in frustration. "I'm huge."
He had come up behind her, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed the side of her neck. "No, you're not. You're beautiful."
She shook her head and replied, "I practically have my own gravitational pull."
He laughed. "No, you don't." A long pause followed in which he tried not to look guilty before voicing his next thought. "I worry about you flying missions."
She sighed in exasperation as she retrieved her flight helmet. "Dr. Kalonia said it's perfectly safe for me to fly until the end of the second trimester." Her next words stopped any objections. "Besides, she likes it." The kick he felt when he placed his hand on Kira's belly seemed to support her mother's words.
The birth had been typical. Like most fathers to be, Luke had simultaneously panicked and told his wife everything would be fine. He held her hand even when he could feel the joints of his prosthetic creaking in protest at her crushing grip. He thought he recalled later that she had threatened to kill him in more than one language.
"Don't tell me to breathe, Skywalker! You got me into this situation!" Her long, sweat-soaked brown hair curtained her face as she had experienced a strong contraction, and she shook him off when he had attempted to brush it back. He imagined if Han and Leia had been there, they would have laughed.
Through the Force, he had monitored the baby despite Dr. Kalonia and a Jedi healer telling him all vitals were normal. He had whispered words of love and encouragement, and he had used the Force to ease his wife's pain, even though Dr. Kalonia had threatened to have him thrown out of the delivery ward for interfering with sound medicine. Only after hearing that first cry, did he relax. Suddenly, there she was: beautiful and perfect and..his. He had been terrified to hold her the first time, but soon, he crawled into the hospital bed beside her mother and held both of them close. He was determined that he would give everything he had-his life if it was required-to protect them. Careful not to wake the sleeping infant, he kissed her forehead and for the first time, he thought he finally understood his father's sacrifice.
They chose the name Rey, not realizing that their child would be just as beautiful and have a presence just as warm and bright as a ray of sunlight. The time passed far too quickly. Though he continued to teach at the Academy, he started to take more time off to avoid missing all of the small moments in her life. While she was far too young to train, Rey had already shown an awareness of the Force, and so he had taught her through play. Games of hide and seek in which she found him around the house taught her how to stretch out her senses and had strengthened their Force bond. When she found him, she would run to him and nearly knock him over. The toddler would hold up her arms for him to lift her up and he carried her on his shoulders, holding her small hands in his own.
When Rey was four, Kira had caught her watching the other students training with lightsabers and imitating their movements. They disagreed about her training later than night as Luke poured over tactical reports as he paced the floor and Kira scanned her navigational charts in bed. Luke thought she should begin to learn to use a lightsaber while Kira argued it was far too dangerous.
"She needs to learn to defend herself. There is a great disturbance in the Force. The loyalist factions and splinter groups are starting to become more organized, more dangerous and unwilling to negotiate. If there is an attack she needs to be prepared. " He turned to face her with a pained expression, reliving memories of his recent nightmares.
"She's four, Luke," Kira got out of bed and faced him with crossed arms. "She needs to be a child while she can."
"Jedi in the Old Republic started training as young as two or three. Besides, have you seen her? She's already demonstrated talent for it."
Kira rubbed her eyes and her tone softened. "I know. I just don't want her getting hurt."
"I promise I won't let that happen."
Luke crossed to her and squeezed her shoulder. "I have an idea."
He started training her with wooden sticks, not letting her get injured or too tired in the process. The child moved with a grace and strength beyond her years and in a few months, Luke decided to give her a fighting staff. She thought it was the best gift she had ever received. When she fell during training and scraped her knee, he had healed the injury then kissed it. After that, she soon got up and knocked him over with a surprise attack, filling him with pride.
He taught her to read navigational charts and flight manuals while other children her age were reading about lost banthas or stubborn spaceships. Kira took her flying whenever missions did not keep her away. Both Kira and Luke favored doing their own repairs on their ships, and Rey sat beside them for hours, content to study the inner workings of the fighter and hand them tools.
Luke remembered a certain day when he was trying to help Kira. "Now, which one was it Mommy said she needed?" His hand stretched out, hovering over the tools.
"No. Not that one, Daddy." She had looked at him with a frustrated expression that was nearly identical to her mother's.
He chuckled. "Ah, yes. Of course. This one." Picking up the bonding tape, he disappeared for a moment down an access hatch to hand the tool to Kira, who was intently focused on the hyperdrive.
"Thanks, Luke." She took it from him and started using it to secure loose wires.
They looked up to see Rey's small face staring down at them. "Mommy, can I come down with you?"
"I don't know. It's pretty boring down here." Kira wiped a smudge of grease from her forehead.
"Please? I like it." Luke looked at his daughter's pouting lip and then at Kira.
"Alright." Kira stood and lifted her down into the access hatch and sat her in her lap, explaining along with Luke how each of the parts worked.
Though she didn't grow up with children's stories, she was raised on the stories of Luke, Leia and Han's adventures and her mother's stories of her flight missions. Luke modified the stories, always minimizing his own importance and tended to stick to the more child-friendly topics like rescuing Princess Leia, meeting the Ewoks, or finding the droids on Tatooine. He promised himself he would tell her the truth about their family-both the light and the dark-but there would be time for that later.
Rey brought joy into the lives of her parents and everyone she knew. The most reluctant, shy or homesick students would see her smile and feel better. She trusted everyone and kept no secrets from anyone. Even Ben, Han and Leia's boy, who was usually sullen and silent, had taken a liking to her. Rey was the one person who had made him smile. Kira worried about the friendship, but Luke thought it was good for Ben. He had watched their first meeting with apprehension. Rey was about four and had left Luke's side, deciding that the conversation about political factions was boring. She was drawn to movement a short distance away where a tall, dark-haired boy sat brooding with a circle of small stones hovering around his head. The boy's eyes were closed and his hands rested on crossed legs.
"Hi...I'm Rey," the little girl said with a broad smile, not intimidated by the older boy. "
Ben had opened his eyes and looked at her as someone might look at an insect. "Hello," he replied disdainfully.
"Are you my cousin?" There is excitement in her voice as she realizes who this boy is from her father's stories about his talent.
He huffed in annoyance. "Yes."
"What are you doing?" She studied the rocks with a smile.
"I'm using the force..." He replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Oh...my daddy can do that too."
He looked at her in annoyance. "I know that. Everyone knows that. I can lift much larger ones. Want to see?"
"Yeah!" She knelt down beside him.
He closed his eyes and concentrated, moving another few stones over. These were as large as a man's head. He arranged them, one by one, into a tower.
"Wow!" She was wide-eyed and silent for a moment.
"Do you like it?" He stared at her, waiting for her response.
"Yes! It's like a little castle." She laughed in delight.
"Well, perhaps it is. A castle for a princess." He smiled, a bright and rare smile.
She scrunched up her brow at that. "I'm not a princess!"
"You're not?" Ben looked at her with mock seriousness now. "You look like a princess."
By the end of the day, Rey had somehow convinced Ben to carry her on his shoulders. Over time, the friendship grew with Ben always using his powers to do little tricks to amuse Rey and talking to her about his training. Until Ben began spending more time alone, withdrawing even more, and disappearing for days to weeks at a time.
When Luke was putting Rey to bed one night, exhausted from negotiations in a neighboring sector, she suddenly asked him. "Daddy, why does Ben ask so many questions?"
His eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, sweetheart?"
"He asked me a lot about when you were going away and about the guards and the access panels too, but I didn't know very much. They were silly questions."
"Rey," Luke was becoming alarmed but didn't want to frighten her, "what else did he ask you?"
"No more questions." She yawned and her eyes grew heavy only to snap open again when she felt her father's worry."Why do you look so sad, daddy."
The Jedi forced a smile and tucked her in, bending to press a kiss to her forehead. "I'm not sad. How could I ever be sad when I have you."
Shortly after that night, Ben disappeared and was rumored to have been abducted by the newly unified First Order. When they told Rey, she cried herself to sleep.
He locked the memories away, tried not to think of them. Remembering is like looking into the incandescence of a star going supernova, it burns his heart. His wife, his daughter, and all his apprentices are long dead. Nothing can bring them back. Yet somehow he lives on, forced to feel the pain of old wounds that can never heal being torn open anew. When Luke first arrived, he thought he might die. Weakened, injured and exhausted, he had carried his wife's body from the ship and buried her on a high craggy bluff overlooking the ocean. Every day, he visits the spot, and he will never stop visiting this place until the day he dies. In the first days, he thought about how easy it would be to give up. It would mean an end to the pain, the memories, the crushing knowledge of his failure; but he is still a Jedi, the last Jedi, and if he dies without passing on his knowledge, then there is no hope for the future.
This place is harsh and exposed to the elements. The Jedi faced death more than once. While climbing a high cliff, he fell and his damaged artificial hand, scrabbling for purchase on the rock. Able to slow but not stop his fall, Luke was felt a bone snap in his leg. Lying there, he fought through the blinding pain and for a moment, he contemplated giving up. Then, he remembered his promise to Yoda to pass on what he learned, and the time Obi-Wan spent watching over him and waiting to train him. He clenched his jaw against the agony and shifted positions, using the Force to help him get to his feet and vault on one leg to the solid ground of the clearing. He healed himself at a pace that was perhaps slower than necessary as the physical pain became a welcome distraction from the pain of his memories.
At first, he had kept track of the days in exile, scratching marks on a rock. He gave up as one year passed and then five...and after that, he doesn't know. Time has become unimportant as every day is the same: he meditates, eats fish from the ocean and vegetables since the last of the rations salvaged from his damaged ship ran out long ago. Then, a period of daily conditioning follows, although with each year, he feels his strength diminishing. Nightmares of the fall of the temple plague him, but the pleasant dreams of Kira and Rey are almost worse. He sees them, or at least how she they would have looked now if they had survived. Kira is still beautiful, dark hair starting to grey just a little at the temples, Rey is tall and beautiful as her mother and almost a grown woman now. When he wakes from the dreams, he is either screaming or weeping.
He has not heard a voice or felt the touch of a hand in years. Despite the crushing loneliness of the desolate place, he is uncertain if he could ever live among people again. Perhaps after his failures, he is unfit. His artificial hand, evidence of another failure long ago, is now corroded and stripped of its synthflesh yet he sees no point in concealing it. The joints are stiff and freeze up at times, causing him pain at the attachment site, but at least it is still functioning. The degradation of the artificial limb is fitting; it mirrors the degradation of his mind. The crumbling ruin in which he lives is a fitting symbol of a ruined and broken life. This fragile, unstable temple, and the more fragile man within it, are all that remains of the Jedi. And he is too old and too broken to start again.
He climbs the hill and looks out over the ocean, stretching with the Force and extending his vision to the far corners of the galaxy. He searches. For what he isn't sure. He is cautious, as he knows it could be far too easy to find a dark presence like the one who betrayed him, and if that evil finds him, then all is lost.
He feels the strange yet familiar being before he turns to see her coming up the hill. At first, he expects that the First Order has found him or sent an assassin or bounty hunter, but the young woman is full of light. And as he turns, he knows. He would recognize the brilliant warmth of her presence anywhere. He throws back the hood and looks at her, paralyzed for a moment. Emotions of love, regret, joy and despair warring in his eyes. His jaw works soundlessly and he struggles to remember how to speak as she holds out his father's lightsaber to him and waits. The look in her eyes reveals she already knows the truth.