Rey looked up at him, panic at the edge of her eyes, as Luke came forward and knelt before her.

"Do you…" he began. Rey stared, hanging on his every word, and he swallowed hard. "Do you understand who that was?"

Rey pressed her lips tightly together. She hesitated. "It was Kylo Ren, wasn't it?" she choked out.

Slowly, Luke nodded. Rey let out a sob, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. It wasn't fair. Everything had been going so well for her since the destruction of Starkiller Base. Even though she knew she'd have to face him again some day, she didn't think it'd be this soon and that she'd be this unready.

"Rey…" he said softly.

"But how?"

"I don't know."

His answer was fast. Too fast. But Rey was already in too much of a state to think about it. In the back of her mind, she could still feel it, the echo of her name in his voice, and a slight tug there that terrified her. She gasped.

"Master. Do you think….do you think he actually knows where I am?" she asked, horrified.

Luke's eyes were stricken, and he peered at her carefully. "Why would you say that?"

Rey lifted a hand and seemed to bat away something invisible behind her head as her eyes searched the ground. "I feel…it's like something's pulling at me. Like a long piece of twine. I…"

As she struggled to describe it, his eyes grew increasingly concerned. Fear flashed across his face and he lifted his eyes to the sky above. There was no real intelligent life on this planet, just a few native creatures, and so the stars shone above like the bright balls of fire and molten gases that they were. He also scanned for anything that could betray itself as a ship moving high above their sky. When he looked back at Rey, he found her staring at him in silence, her face composed once more.

He frowned. "What is it, Rey?"

Her face was blank, desperate to hide her emotions. "I have to leave, don't I?"

"No, of course not," he tried to say comfortingly. He sighed.

He shifted over to sit next to her, knees bent and his arms propped casually over them, and together they looked up at the stars.

"Just because you felt him call to you," he began softly, "doesn't mean he knows where you are."

Rey hung her head down and squeezed her eyes shut. She wished so hard that that were true, but the tugging at the back of her mind told her otherwise and it terrified her. Suddenly, she felt Luke's presence brushing against her mind, and she opened her eyes.

His face was stern as he turned towards her. "Let me look," he offered. "Let me see this pull you're talking about. Maybe…I know I've spent the past several years looking for old scrolls and databases, for every piece of Jedi text I can find, but it doesn't make me all-knowing. And I feel like I'm letting you down not being able to tell you right away what's going on. Master Yoda could have told you. Probably Obi Wan as well. But me…"

Luke sighed painfully and ran his hand down through his short beard. "It's difficult being the last of something, to have your training half-finished and even then it's not what a Jedi would have had in the days of the Republic."

Rey listened carefully to him, but squinted at some of the words he used. Some of them were familiar, like Yoda, but some she only had tiny ideas of, like 'the Republic'- a thing that had seemed ancient and vague on a planet like Jakku. History wasn't exactly a thing you concerned yourself with when surviving today was the name of the game. Still, she'd heard stories, knew the general concept of what it was, but beyond that…

Luke tried hard to smile at her now and repeated his offer. "Let me look."

Rey could feel the anxiety rising in her. What if Luke still couldn't tell what it was? Or what if he could? Did she really want to know how weak her mind was that Kylo Ren could skim through the force like a rock across water to seek her out? Against her better judgement, she found herself turning towards him and resting her hands on crossed legs. She winced.

"I'm ready."

Sternly, Luke nodded, and he raised his hand. Suddenly, Rey's mind was open wide. Of course she hadn't put up any barriers against her teacher- she did want his help. But she didn't expect everything to be that readily available to him. She flickered an eyebrow as he passed through her memories.

"I remember you told me about your experiences with him," he said, going back to the fight in the snow: Rey's every attack parried as he bat her saber away, never attacking, only pushing. As Luke watched it play out before him, he frowned curiously.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Nothing. I'm going back farther."

He saw her frozen on Takodana, Kylo Ren pacing around her as she struggled to move, and he watched as his masked face leaned in close. Luke smirked. We'll work on that next, if you like, he said into her thoughts. He sounded amused.

He pushed on, and flinched. Rey was in a contraption- its intent to torture clear- but found himself surprised as he watched Kylo Ren remove his mask at her harsh words and smirk. Luke raised his brows, and as he looked on, he saw him move closer to her, the look of anguish on her face as he forced her to relive her painful memories, and— THERE.

"Stop," Luke said aloud. The moment replayed itself, and he watched as both Rey and Kylo's expressions changed and felt the memory of something pass between them. The tug.

Luke let the memory go and Rey took in a breath, trying to shake off the memory of the concoction of fear and curiosity and anger from that moment, and she felt Luke just hover in her mind in the now.

"Oh…" he whispered. "Rey…"

She could feel him there but didn't, couldn't, see what he was looking at. "What?" she asked weakly. She felt the sting of tears at her eyes again.

"I don't know how…I'm so sorry."

"What is it?" she insisted, sniffing back her emotions.

"Don't you feel it?"

Rey focused, no longer a passive entity in this mind probe but an active participant, and her breath caught in her throat when she felt it.

"It…it's the same?" She meant it as a statement but the words somehow tumbled out as a question as Luke pulled back, her mind hers once more.

"I've read of this before," he said in a low voice. Rey's mind was buzzing as her heart pumped furiously.

"Two people whose energies can cross and link on to each other," he said, and she could hear the teacher in him taking over. "More often it happens between padawans and their masters. A sort of bond. But in other instances…"

His eyes drifted to Rey and she was beginning to resent whatever emotion it was that he kept casting in her direction. "Sometimes the Force pulls people together across vast distances as well."

"What are you saying?" she asked, her voice hardening as she narrowed her eyes at him. The ambiguity was finally starting to drive her mad.

"I'm saying you're linked. Bonded. Somehow. And whether he knows it or not, that is how you heard him call out to you, however far away he is."

Rey felt herself edging back slowly away from her master, disgust and horror mingling for dominance on her face as he continued.

"That twinge you felt," he said, ignoring her movement. "It was the thing connecting you, I imagine. And if what I've read is correct, there is no way really to sever it. No reasonable way outside of death."

"Then I kill him," Rey spat quickly, automatically. Luke looked on sadly but it just fueled her rising anger more.

"Kylo Ren's powers are great, and even if you did manage to kill him, the bond could pull you with him."

"What?" she gasped. "You mean…" she stuttered. "I-I-I could die if I kill him or if he dies?" Rey's vision started to cloud over. This was too much. She didn't ask for this. She didn't even know what was going on.

Luke shook his head. "That's only if the bond is very great, and even then it's just a possibility. Mostly, it seems, there's just a…huge hole, for lack of a better word, that is left there from where the person used to be. Usually."

"Is that…are we…?"

"No."

Rey let go of a massive sigh she hadn't known she was holding in.

"Not at the moment. From what I can tell. But if you use the link, nurture the bond…then it's a possibility."

Rey scoffed. "Well there's no way in Kahena I'm ever doing that!" and she laughed despite herself.

Luke smiled. "You're coming to terms with it. Good."

She looked at him and instantly scowled. He rose to his feet.

"Come," he said. "Sleep, and in the morning, I'll show you how he confined you in the forest, and how best to get out of it."

Rey looked up at him, her mouth twisted in annoyance. "What about Kylo Ren?"

Luke's brow flickered. "Well he's not beating down our door yet. There is time."

He extended his hand and she took it, rising to her feet and dusting herself off. They said their goodnights, and Rey watched as he descended down the hill to the main dwelling before turning towards her smaller one a little ways away.

As she ducked inside, she took a moment to lean against part of the rock that made up her dwelling wall and sighed. It seemed unreal. Maybe it was unreal, but as she closed her eyes, she could feel it there, the twine, and she quickly shook her head to rid herself of it. Tomorrow she would finally learn what he did to her on Takodana, and she would learn it for herself. That thought brought a twisted smile to her face as she splashed water on herself and scrubbed her arms and legs with an ocean sponge. Taking out a half loaf of bread from a makeshift shelf, she tore off a few pieces and stuffed them into her mouth before putting it back and flopping onto her sleeping pallet. She pulled the Resistance standard issue blanket up over her shoulders and willed herself to sleep.

A/N: Urgh, more stupid mistakes in the previous chapter- they've since been fixed. Anyway, thoughts so far? He's finally getting closer, but she doesn't seem to really want to run...yet.