Disclaimer: It ain't mine. That's all.
Since He Was Born
He first saw her when he was six.
The ball rolled away from him, letting out cute little boops and squeaks as it did, flashing with bright lights. Laughing, Luke ran after the toy on chubby toddler legs. He should have been in bed, but he couldn't sleep—this weird feeling that something was wrong kept poking at him. But Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen got mad and told him to go back to bed when he ran into their room. They didn't believe him. They never did, and he knew Uncle Owen hated it when Luke mentioned one of his "feelings" or did things he couldn't explain.
But the feeling wouldn't go away, so Luke went and found one of his toys to play with outside. The desert was cold at night, but his aunt and uncle would know he was still up if he played indoors. Well, he wouldn't stay out too long.
The little boy continued to chase the ball around the house, and he could hear its beeps and whistles as it was buffeted by the wind. It rolled around the corners, slightly too fast for him to keep up, his breath fogging in the cold. Finally it stopped and he raced to grab it, laughing triumphantly.
But before he got there, another pair of hands picked it up, cradling it between white palms. Luke frowned, annoyed that another had interrupted his game. He opened his mouth to tell the person to get your own ball when the stranger spoke.
"Is this yours?"
Immediately upon hearing her voice, Luke stopped and realized this wasn't just any adult. Most people of Tatooine were short and stout, durable and well suited for the stolid life they led. Instead, this woman was tall and willowy, dressed not in coarse cloth in some silken white fabric that wrapped smoothly around her body in the wind. She wore a soft green cloak, with a wide hood over her head, and little ornamentation besides the odd silver cylinder at her waist and a simple necklace around her neck. She bent to return his ball, and Luke saw that she was beautiful, with creamy white skin, soft brown hair, and clear even eyes. She looked human, like him, yet somehow not—it was as if this was but one shape she wore and he could see glimpses of more shifting beneath her skin.
But the oddest thing about her was that she glowed blue, in the soft night darkness.
"Is this yours?" she asked again, and offered the ball forward. Luke took it and felt the strange urge to kneel, like someone would before a queen.
"Who are you?" he blurted, his high child's voice sounding thin besides the rich low sound of hers.
She smiled. "I've known you since the moment you were born, Luke Skywalker. But it is too late for questions of identity. Shouldn't you be in bed?"
"I couldn't sleep," he said truthfully, his young mind unheedful of the dangers he took talking to a stranger. He never thought to wonder why she wasn't in bed. "I felt something was wrong, but Uncle Owen said I was dreaming. I'm not dreaming," he pouted. Dimly, a part of him was aware of how his aunt and uncle told him never to mention his strange feelings to other people, but there was something about her that caught his trust.
"Of course you aren't," she told him, but with none of the condescending tone most adults used with children. "That was the Force. And you should pay more attention to what you feel from it, no matter what your uncle says."
"Okay," he said.
She stood up again. "And now it's time for you to go back to bed, little Skywalker. Run straight back home, and don't stop. I should hate to lose another one."
And then she vanished. In her place roared a Tusken Raider.
It was hard to tell who was more surprised—the Raider or the little human boy that suddenly appeared at its feet. Not overburdened with intelligence, the Raider did what it usually did when confronted with strange objects—it tried to kill it. Luke screamed and scrambled out of the way. He did as the lady had said and ran for the moisture farm, yelling all the way.
Luckily for him, all the noise woke Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru up, giving them enough time to run off the few Sand Raiders that had drifted too close to their home in the night. Luke was both scolded roundly for being out so late and praised for bringing them warning. The strange woman faded out of his mind.
But she didn't disappear entirely. As the years passed, she started to appear again, in his dreams, in half-remembered images before waking. As he got stronger and stronger in the Force, he saw her if he went too deep in meditation, or entered a Jedi trance for prolonged periods of time. He hardly ever mentioned this to anyone—and the few times he did made it clear that he was the only one who ever saw her. Rather than risk looking insane, Luke kept quiet; he was already uncomfortable in the face of the awed response his reputation gained, and he didn't want to deal with the evitable teasing that the only living Jedi Master was seeing strange women in his dreams.
But even after he started his school and met other people strong in the Force, he resisted asking his students or even his sister whether strange images appeared in their subconscious too. Like it or not, for years he was the most experienced Jedi in the galaxy and it wouldn't do to seem as if the teacher doubted himself. Perhaps it was pride, always a Jedi's failing. Still, over the years, his secret became more…personal, and he didn't really feel like sharing it with anyone. It didn't, after all, interfere with his Force abilities or anything else—surely there was no harm in keeping it to his self?
One night, many years after the war, Luke lay sleeping in his soft bed. Comfortable and warm (rare experiences these days), he drifted peacefully into dreams of a large meadow, filled with light and flowers. He touched his ears, feeling odd. This place was so quiet; there was no evidence of the noisy bustling of modern technology, of ships taking off and land cruisers. He looked around and saw nothing but the clouds up above and misted, purple mountains in the distance. It was rare to find a place like this, untouched by the cold metals of civilization; so calm, so quiet.
Luke waded through the field, smelling the sweet fragrance the flowers released as he passed them by. Eventually he saw that he was not alone—there was a woman sitting among the blossoms, gathering the flowers together in a bouquet. She looked up and smiled as he approached, and offered him one. He stared at her, then reached out and took the gift, realizing that somehow his hands had become smooth and young again, free of the wrinkles and scars age had caused.
"Who are you?" The words rolled with reluctance off his tongue, for he didn't want to leave this place just yet, but it was the same question he always asked whenever he saw this woman.
To his surprise, she didn't disappear; she didn't vanish from his sight this time. "Don't you know?" she asked softly. Her eyes were just as bright and clear as the first time he had seen her, her face sculpted with the same clarity.
He shook his head.
"I've known you all your life. And your father's life." She stood up, the sweet scent of blossoms billowing up around her robes. "I was there when you destroyed the Death Star, when you fought in a city among the clouds, when you finally saw your father's face. I've been with you since." She smiled again. "Ben rejoined me, when you saw him die; Yoda also. And Anakin Skywalker."
Luke stared. "You're the… You…?"
She was quiet.
"The…Force?" That was whom he saw…in his dreams? It made a weird kind of sense…
"I met you before, you know. When you were but a small boy." She began to walk away and he followed. She sighed. "It is easier to do that sort of thing when one is young and full of potential. Later…" She shook her head.
"But…then why do am I here, with you, now? If it's so hard…" Luke stopped, as realization hit him. "I'm…dead, aren't I."
"Yes." She pointed across the field. "But alone, you are not."
They all stood there—Ben, Master Yoda, his father, countless friends and allies and people he had known over the years. Everyone he'd ever known and more that he did not, all smiling and waving and beckoning him to join them, never to be separated ever again.
He felt his heart fill.
The Force smiled upon him, and said only, "Go."
And so it was that Luke Skywalker, first member and Master of the New Jedi Order, hero of the Rebel Alliance, husband of Mara Jade, brother of Princess Leia of Alderaan, son of Anakin Skywalker, and friend to Han Solo, Chewbacca, and many more…did die.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This fic came after a summer or so of reading Star Wars books. Generally…I don't know. Maybe I thought that it might be interesting if the Force and Luke ever really met—or solve the riddle of where exactly the Jedi disappear to when then die. I mean, the movies say they rejoin the Force somehow…so I took it kinda literally.
When the Force speaks of "losing another one" she meant losing another Skywalker. The side I'm presenting here is of the Light; the Dark would have to be much uglier. Maybe a Darth Maul-Emperor Palpatine combo? Shudder.