A/N: Hello, chapter five ready. Before we begin, just a note, it was brought to my attention that the age difference between Kylo Ren and Rey is actually that Rey is around nineteen and Kylo Ren is around 29-30. For the purposes of this story, they are the same age, so I guess this could be considered an official AU for that reason :) Little mistake on my part, but we're cool right?
Chapter Five
As soon as she feels the cool metal of the dash, she is at peace, more at peace than she's been since she disembarked and handed Luke Skywalker his weapon.
Bleep bloop EEE! The little R2 unit buzzes and beeps asking after his master.
"He's not coming." Her answer is short, tempered.
Hoo-ZZZ, bloop.
"Yes." She grabs the controls as Chewbacca gives her a questioning glance. "Oh don't give me that!"
Whaa eeep! The droid's buzzing almost resembles a scream, pure panic as he feels the engine starting..
Chewbacca growls, reaching over and lifting her hands away from the controls, taking over and hitting a series of switches as the ship goes idle, and the engine turns off.
"Chewbacca!" Rey shouts.
The Wookiee's eyes say it all. I will rip your arms off before I let you do something stupid like leave. That's probably an accurate translation in basic, Rey thinks.
"Well, why should I stay?" Rey snaps. "Luke doesn't care. If he did…"
Chewbacca raises his furry brow as R2-D2 beeps, a frantic and long series, without even the droid equivalent of a breath.
Rey listens, her expression softening as Artoo explains about his first meeting with the man when he was no more than a boy around her age, and how he would help everyone he came across, even cutting his training short when his friends needed help. "That doesn't sound like him." Rey says, but even as the words leave her mouth there's something nagging at the back of her mind. That's because you didn't give him a chance you idiot.
She is pulled out of her thoughts by a loud and boisterous growl from the Wookiee as he stands from his seat and crosses the ship. She looks up and over to see the man himself, being crushed in a furry embrace.
She purses her lips as R2-D2 gave a long low series of beeps. She knows what he's saying without much thought. Told ya so.
It hadn't taken too much time to determine a course of action. Luke goes after her. He stands out of view for a while, listening as his old friends try to talk Rey out of leaving. He almost falls as the ship makes to take off and then crashes down with a large boom. Chewbacca must have taken the controls. He feels tears pricking the corner of his vision as Artoo recounts at least some of their adventure, the little astromech as loyal as ever even after all of this time. This is when he decides to make his presence known, stepping forward and walking up the ramp of the Millennium Falcon. It isn't long before he is nearly barrelled down by an armful of wookiee.
"Missed… you too… Chewie." Luke rasps out. He slaps his friend on the back, a little harder than necessary, as Chewbacca releases him regretfully with a muffled roar of apology. He steps further in and is blown away by how similar everything seems. He can imagine himself once again that young boy being led onto the ship for the first time. Even the back row of seats are the same as they once were. Chewie herds him in, grabbing him by his arm and Rey by hers, and seating them across from each other.
"Here we are then." Luke can't help but shake his head in amusement.
"Here we are." Rey lifts her head, shooting daggers Chewbacca who was now at the pilot's seat chattering away rather deliberately with the droid.
Luke observes the girl with her arms crossed, mouth turned downward in a frown. Her expression radiates indifference, but he can see a glimmer in her eyes. She is curious. He can use that. "You have questions."
"So do you." She smirks. It is a challenge. This is good.
"Together then." He says waving his hand. "A question for a question."
She leans forward. "I'll go first. How do you know so much about Kylo Ren?"
Luke freezes as his eyes glaze over. So much like Rey, to shoot for the heart of the matter. He chooses to answer with a half truth. "He was an apprentice in the Jedi Temple, a long time ago."
Rey squints. He knows she is turning the information over in her head, piecing it together with what she already knows. She opens her mouth to ask something else, but remembers. "Your move."
He contemplates what to ask. There is so much that he wants to know, but settles instead for something arbitrary, afraid, he admits to himself, of scaring her off. He looks to Chewbacca and Artoo. "How can you understand Chewie?" He knows it's a silly question, fortunately it is what he's going for.
She raises her eyebrows. "That's your question?" As he nods, she continues. " Alright if you really want to know. Back on Jakku, I saw a lot of different people, picked up on a lot of different languages. Had to…" She shrugs. "Only way to know if someone was trying to kill me. Survival."
His mouth quirks up in a close-mouthed smile. "You're resourceful."
Rey sits a little straighter at the compliment. "Thanks. So, why haven't you tried to reach out to the resistance anyway, why leave them hanging?"
Luke shakes his head. "Another time."
"You have to answer." Rey's eyes flame.
"I can't." he sighs.
"Can't or won't?"
Check...mate. Luke looks at her for a long while. He is almost certain his face is a dead giveaway, but Rey's, Rey's is probing. You'd make a good interrogator. Out loud he says. "Dangerous. It was dangerous."
"And?"
"And, that's all there is to it." Luke stands suddenly walking toward the ramp that leads out of the ship. "Are you guys going to come back?"
Artoo whistles as he follows. Chewie shakes his head growling.
"Chewie's going to stay with the Falcon." Rey translates.
"I assumed as much." Luke smiles tapping Chewbacca on the arm. "It's good to see you my friend."
As they walk back toward the house, Luke lets his mind wander. Being in the Falcon again brought up many memories, one in particular that he'd rather have forgotten, one of his last exchanges with the man he called his best friend.
He found him outside, staring at this planet's red hot sun as it set. Luke can see that Han is upset. He can tell by the way Han is leaning, elbows bent, arms putting slightly too much weight on the porch rail. His legs are crossed, an attempt at indifference, but Luke sees through it, because he's the one that made such an act necessary.
"Han,"
Han turns raising an eyebrow. "If you're going to tell me that it's for the best, don't bother Luke."
He doesn't realize how much it hurts until he hears his name. It's not like Han ever made it a habit, choosing instead jabs, plays on his Jedi status, the inaugural "kid" that still makes the rounds even all these years later. It is this that makes Luke realize how difficult this is going to be. His nephew's safety, his family's safety, had never been such a hard choice for him before. "I won't." he said. He placed his elbows against the railing as he watched the scene. A burst of color finds its way into the sky as the sun glimmers and disappears for its sleep. He finds himself talking, trying to fill the space. "Ben… he's meant for something. I don't know what that is, but this Force sense was given to him for a reason." He isn't sure whether he's justifying his earlier words for his benefit or Han's, but it's something that has to be done. As Han's mouth forms a line, Luke's words come out soft. "Nothing happens without a reason."
"So you're going to take him, because of some reason that might not exist?"
"No." Luke shook his head. "Believe it or not, I'm trying to help him."
"By taking him away from us?" Han shouted. "Oh yeah, that's real helpful!"
"Han, just let me-"
"No," Han sighed. "Just… just leave me alone kid, okay?"
As he watched Han walk away toward the Falcon that was parked and ready for fiddling, Luke couldn't help but wonder what he had hoped to accomplish.
If he had to answer that question that Rey had asked, Luke thinks that the reason he didn't go back could be connected to that day. After that day, nothing was the same, for Luke, for Leia, for Han, for Ben or for his little girl. He wonders if anything would have turned out differently if he had given it a few more days thought, if he had stopped Han that day instead of going back into the house, if he hadn't just assumed it was another one of his friend's manageable moments that could be forgotten with a bit of tinkering.
He closes his eyes, expelling the feelings, putting them to the back of his mind and letting them dissolve into the Force. Rey needed his help. There would be time for reflection later. Now, action was necessary.
"Why are we going back to the house?" Rey walks beside Luke watching the man. She wonders if she had pushed too hard. Luke's steps were brisk and he appeared, for all purposes to be lost in his thoughts. "Luke, hello, you in there?" Rey waves a hand in front of his face.
"There is something you have to learn."
Rey rolls her eyes. Why did Luke insist on being so cryptic? "Well, yeah. You're training me, but what is it?"
"Trust." Luke grins before walking ahead, tossing the words over his shoulder. "It starts now Padawan."
Rey tests the strange word on her lips. "What...what does that mean?"
" A long time ago, it was used to describe the trusted student of a Jedi Master."
Rey feels like she's been doused in cold water as Luke's words sink in. Trusted student. All at once, she feels that old instinct. She's getting too close, too involved, but how else was she supposed to help everyone? Even though she hates to admit it, she'd grown rather fond of the strange crowd that she had met over these weeks: Han, Chewie, Leia, Finn, Poe, BB-8, and even old Luke Skywalker as mysterious as he is. It would be a dishonor to Han's memory to leave now. Somehow she realizes this. She knows he respected Luke, she knew it when she had heard him mention the man when they had first met. If she abandoned him now, just when he made this admission, this, dare she think, vote of confidence, how was she going to face herself? How would she face them?
"I like the sound of that." She gives a small smile. "So, do I get to call you Master now?"
"It's only fair."
As Luke answers, Rey feels a burst of excitement, something oddly familiar, but foreign at the same time. It's really starting now.
Luke is struggling to keep his mind on the task at hand. Ever since he allowed those gates to open back on the Millennium Falcon, he couldn't keep himself from wandering back to those moments, those times he can't help but regret.
"Close your eyes." His voice is soft. "Tell me what you felt, back at the ruins. Try to feel it now." Keeping his gaze locked onto Rey is the only thing that's keeping him from drifting. She has become his anchor once again, whether she realizes it or not.
"Everything?" She asks. She sounds worried, afraid of reproach.
"Everything."
"I feel…" She sighs. He can see her expression change as her eyes pinch at the brow. "Pain, so much loss. Regret." She tosses her head back. "People… dying. It's terrible." She snaps her eyes open, looking around. Her eyes are wide. She can't even look at him. Luke can see she's afraid. "Don't make me do that again...please."
Luke nods, feeling drained as though he himself had done the exercise. In a way, today, he supposes he has. "You did well. Get some sleep. The door on the left is a spare bedroom, better than the couch.."
She looks skeptical, as if she's not quite sure that she has done well at all, but she takes his directions standing from the table. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight Rey."
As he watches her walk down the hall, he sighs turning away toward the window. He closes his eyes allowing himself to fully relax, at last. He doesn't know why he decides meditation would be the proper salve for his buzzing thoughts. He can remember himself as a young Jedi, one who much preferred an active walking meditation on Dagobah or the Rebel base, or a bit of practice with a training remote. The fact that he is sitting as still as he is would leave his younger self in relative stitches. In fact, he remembers he was much like Rey, in awe of what he would find when he reached out to the Force, until Yoda. He remembers both of them: Obi-Wan and Yoda, such gifted teachers. Somehow they were able to take a farm boy and turn him into a Jedi. All he had been able to do was take his nephew and turn him into Kylo Ren. What was to say his daughter wouldn't take the same path? As the thoughts encroach, Luke feels the Force twisting and writhing under his skin. He struggles to find the center, but finds it impossible as the thread grows longer and longer, until he hears a voice that causes him to lose his grip entirely as a glittering blue form takes shape.
"You are troubled my Son."
A/N: Oh boy! Well, that's a cliffhanger. How'd I do? What'd you think of Han's reaction, believable? As for some tidbits about what's coming next: the Skywalkers talk, Rey finds something that changes her perspective and leaves her with more questions, and we get a peek at what's going on at the resistance base. In flashback land, we get Leia's perspective. Please let me know your thoughts if you are so inclined. Helps make a better story.
