Rey held out the lightsaber, and after a long moment Master Luke Skywalker stepped forwards and took it.

Then shrugged.

"No, I don't think it's my colour," he said. "You can have it."

Rey… blinked.

"What?" she said, taking back the lightsaber automatically as Luke offered it. "But – but…"

She frowned. "That's not why I came here!"

"Why did you come here, then?" Luke asked.

"To get your help with the First Order!" Rey said.

"Hmm…" Luke frowned, then shook his head. "No, that's not right."

Rey's jaw dropped.

"It's not a wrong answer," Luke added, helpfully. "Just to the wrong question. I asked why you were here. Why not someone else?"

"It's-" Rey began, then stopped as the full question hit her.

Why was it her? Why was she here?

"I… we… thought that maybe you'd… not realized we needed help?" she tried. "And that I was the only person who didn't have anything else to do?"

It sounded wrong even as she said it, and Luke nodded knowingly.

"That sounds like your problem," he said. "Or, well… one of them. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some work to do."

"...some what?" Rey asked.

"I live here," Luke replied, with a shrug, walking past her. "I haven't just been standing up there for years waiting for you to arrive. I have things I need to do."

He went off down the steps, and Rey blinked a few times before shaking her head.

This was not what she'd expected a meeting with Luke Skywalker to be like.

"...see, what you need to know is what matters about life," Luke said, talking partly to himself, and partly to her, and possibly partly just to the air in general as he checked a fish trap on the shore. "And the first thing that matters about life is that you need to know a way to survive."

"Is there a point to this?" Rey asked, standing out of the way of where the crashing waves might reach her.

"What do you think?" Luke replied.

"I… don't know, but I don't see how any of this is important," Rey replied. "The galaxy's in danger – the First Order destroyed a planet!"

"That does sound serious," Luke replied, looking up from the trap with his haul. "Are they going to destroy another one?"

Rey hesitated.

"Well, no, but… why don't you seem to care about this?" she demanded. "I thought Jedi cared about things like that!"

"Then why do you need me?" Luke asked. "It sounds like you know something important about being a Jedi already."

He carried the fish past her, up the stairs, and Rey sighed before following him.

"We need your help," she said. "To stop the First Order – to stop Kylo Ren!"

"And what would you have done if I wasn't here?" Luke asked. "Would you have given up?"

"No!" Rey replied, stung.

Luke gave her a little smile, and kept going.

About twenty minutes later, Luke was in his hut cooking dinner, and Rey stepped into the doorway.

"You know, if you're going to stand in the way of the light, I can't see very well," Luke chided her.

"Why aren't you helping?" Rey demanded, then stepped out of the light. "Why are you just sitting there and acting like… like there's nothing wrong?"

"Because I can't help you," Luke answered.

He pointed his spoon at her, then stirred the pot again. "You think you're here because you want my help with the First Order. But what you actually want is a meaningful past. I can't give that to you."

Shrugging, Luke tasted the broth, then added a little dusting of herbs. "If you wanted something else, then we could talk. But if you're going to ask me for help, make sure you're actually asking for something I can give you."

Rey stared.

"That's… that's not what I want," she protested.

"Isn't it?" Luke replied, turning and looking into her eyes.

Rey tried to speak, but couldn't find the words.

"What have you longed for, all your life?" Luke asked her. "To matter? For your parents to have had a reason to leave you behind? To leave your home? Because if those are still the things you want, then you already have the third and the second is impossible. The first…"

He sighed, and suddenly Rey could breathe again.

"The first lost me a student," he said. "And, through them, all the rest."

Rey looked down, and Luke shook his head lightly.

"If you don't know what you want, how can you know how to get it?" he asked.

The old Jedi Master turned back to his broth, and Rey didn't speak for a minute or so.

"...why are you here, then?" she asked. "Why not somewhere else?"

Luke turned, and smiled.

"Now that's more like the sort of question you need to ask," he said. "There's a lot to be said for solitude, when you need to work something out with yourself… it means there's nobody else there to confuse the issue."

Humming an old Tatooine song to himself, Luke passed a needle and thread through his robe, carefully darning a tear.

The robes were old and tough, but they would never last forever. And yet, care could make them last far longer than they otherwise would.

The sound of running feet came to his ears, and he looked up as Rey arrived in the doorway.

"Why?" Rey asked.

"Come in," Luke told her. "Take a seat – climbing that many stairs that fast must be tiring, especially if you're not used to the climate."

Rey didn't.

"So, what did Kylo tell you?" Luke added, drawing the thread through one last time and then tying it off.

"He told me you tried to kill him!" Rey said. "He was just a boy!"

"Did he tell you why?" Luke asked, starting on the weft of the darn.

"Nothing can make that right," Rey insisted.

"Maybe not," Luke said. "What he said is true… from a certain point of view."

He drew the needle through, and turned it around the other way. "But if you're going to be a Jedi, you've got to learn that things can rarely be seen from just one side."

His gaze flicked up to her. "That's also something you should learn if you're not going to be a Jedi, of course…"

"I don't follow," Rey said. "A certain point of view?"

"A certain point of view," Luke agreed. "Everyone has a different point of view. You certainly can't trust the first one you hear. What if I'd told you that Kylo was already working for a Dark Lord while he was still at my academy? What if I told you he burned it down and killed all his friends? People who I'd known, and trained, since childhood… people who he'd known, and trained, for just as long?"

Luke shook his head. "Is that unforgivable, as well? What should I have done about it? What should they have done about it? If you think you already have the answer, then… perhaps I haven't been giving you the right lessons."

"...how does that work?" Rey asked. "There's got to be a right thing to do, hasn't there?"

"Maybe there is," Luke said, readily enough. "I've come up with a few that might be right things to do, myself, over the years. But if it took years to think of a better way, is it right to expect me to have come up with it in seconds?"

His needle flicked up and down through the threads. "I could blame myself. Ren. Snoke. I could decide nobody is to blame at all. All of these are options… and none of them make things right. So what does matter?"

Luke glanced over at Rey again. "What do you think?"

"...I think…" Rey began, paused, then shook her head.

Reached down, to touch the lightsaber at her side.

"I think that I'm not doing anyone any good here," she said. "My friends are in danger. I need to go and help them."

Luke nodded.

"If that's what you think, then I'm not going to stop you," he said. "Just… try not to lose a hand."

Rey didn't leave the hut, and Luke finished his darning.

"Anything else?" he asked. "You seem to still be here."

Rey looked uncertain, then her resolve firmed.

"Please," she said. "Can you help me? I don't know if I can do it myself."

Luke didn't answer for a long moment, then stood and shrugged on his robe.

"Good question," he said. "Why don't we find out?"

AN:

A version of Luke in TLJ who is… I suppose the correct term is, more Luke? And more like his teachers.