AN: Oh, hello there! Just a quick word before you dive in. This story is a pretty open to interpretation about the pairing. And before I forget, nothing from SW universe belongs to me. For now, enjoy!

The ocean was huge, more than exceeding her wildest expectations. Rey couldn't stop herself from staring while the Falcon slowly circled around the island in its middle; small, grassy speck of land full of rocks and dangerous cliffs. From above, there was no trace of civilization, and it looked all but abandoned eons ago. Yet she could feel it. There was something on it which had been calling to her through time and space for as long as she could remember.

It was the island she had spent years dreaming about, and Rey felt her heartbeat pick up. She knew the place, and she knew that a man lived there in complete isolation. She had felt his loneliness, his pain, and those emotions were intimately familiar to her. It was always hard to tell which feeling was hers – and which bled through the dreams and belonged to him.

Chewie did one more circle around – and there, oh, there! Rey blinked and stopped breathing for a second. A lonely figure stood on top of a high cliff.

It was him, that man. Then her gaze widened when the realization hit her full force; he was also Luke Skywalker. When she had set out to find the last Jedi master, Rey had had no idea what to expect. However, she had not imagined this place, least of all him.

Her blood ran cold, and she gripped the armrests tightly in her fists. All of her hopes shattered right in front of her while she gazed at the familiar surroundings. Faces flashed before her eyes – Finn, Poe, General Organa's hopeful eyes. They all hoped for Skywalker's return, he was supposed to be the one to turn the tide of their endless war against the First Order, their last hope.

Rey took a deep breath shakily. What she had thought to be only dreams, a recurring theme to alleviate her own loneliness had been real all the time. Her imaginary friend was real. His pain was real, his sorrow, all of his demons.

Force, Luke Skywalker was broken.

Unbidden and unwelcome, the memory came to her mind as Chewie found a place to land near the only sandy beach on the whole island. That beach.

"What's that?" Rey asks. Her voice is small, and her hazel eyes are too dark, too large on her sunburned face. It's one of the first times she sees him. "What's that feeling? You're cold."

He is just a dark shape somewhere in front of her, but Rey is not afraid. He hurts, she can tell. His shoulders are slumped, and his head bowed. He's shivering. Slowly, the man turns, and Rey blinks, surprised. Blue eyes are watching her, face half hidden behind a long scruffy beard.

His clothes, the tips of his too long hair and beard are wet, and Rey can't wrap her mind around that. Where in the world could exist enough water to do that to someone's clothes? Definitely not on Jakku.

"Oh, hello, young one." The voice is hoarse. Was he crying? When Rey cries and screams, in the night, when those unpleasant dreams come, she wakes up in the morning talking like that. "You should not be here, though it's nice to have some company. Even if it's only in my mind."

Funny, Rey thought that he was in her dream. "What are you doing?"

He hesitates and takes a slow step towards her. The strange weightless feeling they share, cold and unfamiliar, abates a bit the closer he gets to Rey. Then they are left freezing. Rey tries to see what is behind him but there's only darkness. The only thing she sees clearly is him.

"What was that?" Rey gasps and wraps her arms around herself. "What were you doing?"

After a heartbeat, he crouches in front of her. There's sand under their feet now, it clings to him. Blinking back tears, he thinks for a moment before he says, "Swimming."

"Swimming?"

"That's what you do in water. Have you never swum?"

"No." Now Rey is shivering violently. "There's not much water on Jakku, you know."

"I suppose it's not." He gazes away from her, his own body shaking with cold. "That's a desert planet, isn't it?"

"I don't like sand," Rey grumbles. It gets everywhere, and it's scratchy and – she doesn't like sand at all. She digs her toes into it and frowns. When it's wet, it feels different, almost pleasant. Perhaps she doesn't like only the sand on Jakku.

At that, the man turns back to her, and he gives her a small smile. "I don't like it either."

"Do you usually sw-swim in your clothes? It doesn't feel very good."

"Ah, no, not usually. I just," he stops and buries his face in his hands, stifling what Rey knows is a sob. He coughs and rubs his eyes. "You don't swim with most of your clothes on. As you pointed out, it's not a very pleasant experience."

Rey wants to answer, but then she catches a glimpse of something behind him and gasps. There's water, lots of it, filling the whole horizon. Its dark blue and it reflects the moonlight.

"What is that?"

"An ocean."

"It's very pretty."

He nods and observes her while Rey gawks at the miracle. They remain silent for a long time, their breaths leaving their bodies in small puffs of vapor. Then she notices again the tremors running through his body and tears her eyes from the water. They are very, very cold, she realizes.

"You can freeze to death in winter at night. I saw a man who died like that once. You should get warm." Rey says and touches his face. He starts, and his eyes widen at the contact. Her hand radiates warmth and Rey become aware of something important.

"Y-you should get w-warm, too," he says, choking back emotions she can't understand. She knows now that the cold she feels is coming from him. Rey is safely tucked in her blankets in an AT-AT she found earlier in the week. She thinks she will make it her home. Better than to share with other orphans in Niima.

"I'm not cold, silly." With all the decisiveness of a nine-year-old, Rey smiles and wraps her arms around his neck. The beard is as scratchy as it looks, but she doesn't mind. The best way to keep warm is to share body heat. Lessons of survival are the first children of Jakku learn otherwise they don't last long. "You are. Is there a place where we can make fire?"

For a few heartbeats, he remains still and then returns the embrace with a shuddering breath. He picks her up from the sand and carefully rises to his feet. Stumbling, he leaves the ocean behind. The last thing Rey does before she wakes back in her old AT-AT is touching her small palm to his cheek again.

It took her most of the afternoon to climb the cliff. She knew the way just fine – there wasn't much chance of getting lost on the island anyway. Skywalker had remained where she had first glimpsed him, and when she finally approached him, he had his back turned to her.

"I did not expect anyone to find me so soon." The voice was rusty from disuse, the tone detached, yet Rey had no doubt that it was him. Slowly, the pieces clicked into place. She was Force-sensitive, and he was a Jedi master, and they were probably the only active Light users left in the whole galaxy – General Organa had made her opinion known loud and clear. The Force itself meant for them to meet and obviously, the Force was not above nudging them along a bit.

With this knowledge in mind, Rey felt braver facing him. Her words came out loud and clear, "I did not expect to be here at all."

Skywalker whirled to face her with lightning speed. His face betrayed his shock at hearing her voice, and disbelief when he saw her standing in front of him. The eyes which usually held only sorrow were round and full of alarm. His hand went to the lightsaber at his belt.

She felt the danger keenly and could only imagine what went through his mind as he stared at her, breathing hard. He probably thought it was a trick, or that he had lost his mind. Neither was a pleasant conclusion that bode well for her.

Rey had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep silent while Skywalker fought the fight/flight impulse. She was the last person he had expected to see, ever. Rey could relate. She watched him calmly and cataloged everything she saw. It had been some time since they had shared a dream together. More than two years.

Skywalker's Jedi robes were in pristine condition, but the same could not be said about their owner. He looked tired and worn out, hair unkempt, beard too long – both streaked with silver. What made Rey pause was, however, the absence of his presence.

She blinked slowly. She could not feel him. Not that Rey was now an expert on all things connected to the Force, but once the Force within her had awakened, it was just there – constantly in the back of her mind. She had been able to feel Kylo Ren and General Organa. She was even aware of where her borrowed lightsaber was when she had not it with her, and she sometimes got a hunch where her friends were on the base. With Skywalker, it was if the space in front of her was empty.

"Rey?" he asked eventually, almost timidly. Rey heaved a sigh of relief when his posture relaxed. "Oh, I was so certain I was awake. What are you doing here? I thought that those dreams stopped."

Now he looked utterly confused. That made two of them. Rey had no idea how to approach this. He was Luke Skywalker, for Force sake, and Rey was the only one aware of how damaged the legendary hero had become.

"I'm afraid not."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm afraid that neither of us is dreaming."

Skywalker only blinked at her and Rey took a fortifying breath and stepped closer. Very carefully, she unfastened the lightsaber and offered it to him.

"I came across this, and I thought I would return it to you. It's built for someone much taller than me, you see. I keep destroying the flooring."

He blinked again, rapidly. "That's a lightsaber. My father's lightsaber."

"I know."

"I never told you anything about my family."

"Not even your name, Master Skywalker."

He started and took a quick step back, his face darkening. "No, I certainly did not tell you my name. Rey, this is becoming bizarre. I think it would be best for you to go."

Rey wisely took a step back, too. He thought it was all a dream again, didn't he? That complicated things a bit. Could he not sense her presence? That should be enough to make him see. What had he done to himself? Had he cut himself from the Force? Could he still help the Resistance or teach her in any capacity? Immediately after the idea entered her mind, she felt ashamed, selfish. She wasn't there to exploit the man, and Force knew that Skywalker had paid his dues the first time around. Still, the doubt lingered.

Rey knew that Skywalker's exile was connected to the rise of the First Order, to the destruction of the Jedi Academy and turning of Ben Solo to the Dark Side. However, she would not believe that someone like him would allow evil to break him. It wasn't like the Luke Skywalker she had heard about as a child, and it definitely was not like the man she had come to know.

Her 'imaginary' friend was kind and compassionate and stronger than he knew. As Rey thought these thoughts, another piece clicked into its place, and she sucked in a breath sharply. Could it be?

Skywalker frowned and worry flashed in his eyes as he approached her again. "I did not mean it like you are unwelcome. It's good to see you, of course. It's just… It's been almost three years."

With a pang, Rey realized that he had kept count. She had been in contact with others during that time. Most of those encounters had hardly been pleasant, that's for sure, but she had not been deprived of basic human (and non-human) interaction. She had made real friends, too. Skywalker had been alone. Perhaps the absence of the shared dreams had only damaged his already fragile mind further.

"It's been too long but honestly, I have no idea how these Force connections work." Rey put the lightsaber back to its place and then reached out a hand towards him. The easy familiarity of the dreams was gone – going for an embrace felt like too much, too soon.

Skywalker blinked yet again and took her hand between both of his. The metal of his artificial right hand felt cold, and Rey wondered what went through his mind as the observed hers. He traced the lines on her palm next and then gazed back into her face. "Force connections?"

She nodded solemnly. He dropped her palm at once, and a new wave of alarm entered his eyes. Rey could see how he connected the dots, too, how the reality of the situation finally reached him. His face blanked, resembling a smooth, cool mask, his eyes hardened into two shards of ice.

"Who are you?"

"Ray from Jakku but you already know that."

"No. No! Who are you? What are you? Why did you come?"

Rey startled at the questions, surprised at the anger in his voice. She did not feel anything from him like every other time she had stood before Skywalker, and it was a disconcerting notion. Their emotions were their own now.

"You know that, too."

They stared at each other, and Rey desperately wished to make this right. It was horrible – not only for him but also for her. It was one thing to reveal so much of oneself to a person created by your imagination, it was something completely different showing those fractured parts to a real person. Skywalker knew her like no one else did like no one else could and she knew him just as thoroughly. They had shared dreams and feelings for years, for Force sake!

She knew the signs of approaching breakdown, too; Skywalker was breathing hard, blinking in rapid succession, fisted his hands as the first tremors shook his frame. It wasn't the first time, and it wasn't the last, and it had always been awful to see, to feel. Not that Rey had remained to witness the worst of it. Skywalker's emotions had had to cut the connection in those times, before the poisonous sense of betrayal, hurt and anger could envelop her fully.

"Please." The word slipped out before she could stop it. Rey reached towards him one more time and touched his arm. "Please, Master Skywalker…"

"Do not call me that." He flinched and bowed his head, facing away from her. Yet he stayed standing where he was, grounded by the contact. It felt the same yet different, more solid, warmer.

"Alright. Is there a place where we can talk?"

The question was not unfamiliar. Many of their previous conversations had started or ended with Rey's curious 'is there a place where we can…?' and Rey could see how it affected him, slowly dispelling the approaching storm of Skywalker's darker, more dangerous emotions. Weren't Jedi Knights, let alone Masters, supposed to be above all those things?

He watched her intensely for long moments, and Rey noticed that he had begun mimicking her breathing pattern. In and out, slowly, steadily.

"Why did you come? What do you want from me?" His voice was surprisingly calm, only slight hitch near the end betrayed him.

Answering that was simple and it made wonderful sense. Rey skimmed the sleeve of his robe and touched his hand, the left one, gently squeezing his fingers with hers. The Force wanted her to come here, to find him. Why? She was a fledgling Jedi, a passable fighter with a staff, satisfactory pilot. She had no family and only a handful of friends. She didn't have much to recommend herself – but she had always been damn good at fixing things.

"This is where I am supposed to be."

AN:

*nervously peeks out of her hiding place*

That's it. I've done it! Hope you like it – I never wrote fanfiction before, so I was pretty scared to share it with the whole world. So, let me know what you think. Should I make it multi-chapter? Where would you like to see the two of them go? I have some ideas, but I'd be happy as our two Labrador puppies to hear your thoughts (and we have the happiest doggies you can imagine)! If you haven't guessed, English is my second language, and I really do hate commas. Anyone interested in beta-reading this baby? And oh, the story is also posted on A3 under Mad_Mage.

*ducks behind a massive bowl of popcorn*