Chapter Text
Leia was as beautiful as always.
Luke cradles his sister's aged face in between his own liver-spotted hands and wonders how they had ever gotten here.
He kisses her forehead, throat thick with tears, but calm.
He can see what's left of his future.
He knows what to do now.
After his Nephew had struck, Luke had been left reeling in the ashes of everything he had tried to build. Leia had been left reeling when Ben, when Kylo had revealed to the galaxy the truth behind her heritage to explain his own defection. In a single night she had lost her son, her brother, and the galaxy had condemned and dubbed her ‘warnings’ of the rise of the First Order as ‘warmongering’, as she was the daughter of Vader. Luke had thought he was doing the right thing by leaving, but he can see it was a mistake.
Leia had lost everything, yet she still kept fighting.
Luke was ashamed of himself.
Leia senses it.
“I am so glad to see you again.” She comforts him, absolves him of his absence. See you one last time is left unsaid, but heard. Leia’s long hair was now gray, but Luke could see her classic brown color at the very edges of the strands now pulled back into a neat braid, the color causing an overwhelming wave of painful nostalgia. Leia had given up the ceremonial buns of her planet's royalty when the survivors of Alderaan exiled her.
Luke's smile is bittersweet.
He goes to confront his nephew on the icy planet, brilliant crystal foxes chirping and dashing past him. Kylo has grown, but not in wisdom. Luke has faith Kylo could break out of the Darkside, but only after Luke breaks his spirit here!
Luke is able to buy the Resistance the time they need and defeat his Nephew all without landing a single blow. It’s a breathtaking rebuke of the dark-side philosophy. His nephew had always struggled with the principles of flowing, of nonviolence, of acceptance.
Luke fades.
The sensations of a thousand arms welcome him home, the first hands to help him up being the first he remembers losing, Uncle Owen, Aunt Beru, then Ben Kenobi, Biggs Darklighter followed by every single person he had ever loved and lost.
He becomes one with the force.
…
…
…
“Luke, Luke! Oh my darling, what's wrong?”
Aunt Beru is holding him again. She’s younger than Luke remembered her being, the last time he saw her in the hours before her death, before being murdered by stormtroopers the way so many others had been.
She gasps.
Her fingertips trace his tears in shock.
“Oh! Owen, he’s crying! Get him some water.”
Luke turns to see his Uncle, uncharacteristically shaken, and standing to leave Luke’s childhood room, the room he had lived in until the day imperials had burned the farm to the ground.
He looks up at Aunt Beru in unabashed awe.
She seems so real…
Owen comes back and instead of allowing Luke to grab the cup, he takes one hand to cup the back of Luke’s head and to bring the glass up to Luke’s mouth in the way he did when Luke had been exceptionally sick, and often when he was young.
He drinks.
It’s the sweetest water he’s ever had. Luke had missed them terribly. The little guy was always forgotten in the face of grand Jedi Knights, Sith Lords, Queens, royalty, but a part of Luke had never stopped thinking of himself as a farmboy, and wondering if it had all simply been a dream.
“I missed you guys.” Luke smiles widely at them, tasting salt on his teeth. He must have been crying out furiously. Now that they were in the Force together, he never had to worry again about being separated.
That should have reassured them.
Instead, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru exchange an increasingly frantic look.
Owen puts the back of his sun-scarred, calloused hand to Luke’s forehead despite knowing he didn’t feel much through the scars, but the thought that he was so worried for Luke he’d try anyway warms Luke’s heart even as he feels it break again at the memory of their loss.
He begins to cry anew.
His grip on his emotion feels…off.
As Luke grew into Knighthood, he learned emotional regulation techniques, meditation the Jedi used, ways to process grief and trauma from the therapists Leia had said helped her.
It’s as if all of that training is gone, and Luke has the brain structure and hormones of a kid again.
“Lukka, little light, don’t waste water in the desert.” Aunt Beru says almost helplessly. Luke is reminded that his name was a version smoothed over by galactic standard, but in his grandmother Shmi’s language meant ‘Lukka’, or ‘light’. His birth-mother must have known what that meant. Aunt Beru had been exceptionally close to Shmi on the homestead, and often told Luke stories of her, and the sole one she had with Padme Amidala.
“....But, we’re not in the desert, we’re dead. We’re in the Force. ” Luke sniffles happily.
Aunt Beru gasps.
Uncle Owen’s eyes widen in terror the way they only did when other farmers sent out alarms about the Sand People.
“Luke. Look at me.” Owen says, sitting on the bed with Luke and Beru.
“I am.” Luke says, choked up, unbelievably happy. No one remembered the people who had raised him. Luke’s obvious, delirious delight worries them further.
“You’re alive, so are your aunt and I, I-did you have a bad dream, son?” Owen asks, gruffly, but so gently, he was trying so hard. He avoided calling Luke ‘son’, not because he didn’t love Luke, but because he felt it was disrespectful to his brother Anakin, who he had met only once, yet felt like he had known deeply due to Shmi’s stories. And yet, whenever Luke asked him about Anakin, Owen would clam up. Out of fear for Luke, but perhaps because he himself didn’t know what happened. Had his Aunt and Uncle known their brother had become Darth Vader?
“Luke, how do you know about the Force? Did that old Ben talk to you?”
Luke shakes his head no, his mind drifting in confusion.
At Owen’s question, Luke feels his world slow.
A…dream?
“No…” Luke moans. He heaves
He hears his aunt say something, but it sounds like he’s underwater. Leia had taught him to swim. She had learned herself in the oceans of Alderaan but Luke had not seen a body of water big enough to be submerged in until after he destroyed the death star. Luke remembers laughing at how funny she had sounded trying to instruct him underwater.
He’s not laughing now.
Luke throws up.
Uncle Owen had a bucket ready just in time. He had always been reliable like that, until he abruptly wasn't.
Aunt Beru goes to wipe his mouth, and Luke feels the press of his lips into a bite that was missing several baby teeth. Luke has lost his last baby tooth at fourteen.
His heart beats fast.
He throws out his senses.
It feels like all the air leaving him all at once
Luke is overwhelmed with their presence, their beautiful luminous being. Desert life populates the day above, as humans had adopted a mostly nocturnal life on Tatooine, the twin suns making night more of a permanent dusk, suitable for working.
It’s…
It’s real.
In the distance at the edge of his senses Luke feels Tosche station on the Great Chott Salt Flat, where his grandmother as a newly freed woman would go to and be paid fairly for her services in repair. He even feels several of his childhood friends lost to time. Laze, Camie, Biggs!
Luke drinks greedily like an offworlder who had underestimated the desert.
It’s equal parts joy and horror.
All that he had done, all the progress they had made, what of it now?
And another star responds.
Ben.
Obi-Wan Kenobi.
A potent mix of feelings flood Luke at his old mentor, bittersweet love, grief, pain over lies. Luke reaches out in awe, like a child to something beautiful.
Obi-Wan reaches back in desperation.
He’s coming this way.
Oh.
By throwing out his senses like that, when he was still shy of teenagerhood, Luke had fully opened himself up and revealed himself in the force. Any force user on the planet would feel Luke's desperation, his flailing, his oscillating like a distress beacon on a downed ship.
Luke is young, again.
Not yet trained in the force.
Still losing milk-teeth.
He simply isn’t ready for this immersion in the force.
Luke succumbs.
…
…
…
He dreams.
Some of them are dreams.
Some of them are memories, or, visions? If they haven’t happened yet?
Luke dreams of meeting Han, but then of a younger Han, the Han of now running Spice with Chewie. Both are skinny after being newly freed from the imperials.
He dreams of a little Leia running with her cousins on a still alive Alderaan.
Luke dreams of the long struggle of redeeming his Father, the realization that this father is still in the grips of the darkside.
When he surfaces, he catches snatches of conversations.
“I told you once, and I’ll tell you again, we won’t have you ruining Luke like you did his father! You take him from here, and he dies in some foolish war-”
Luke dreams of the Clone Wars.
“-He’s burning up Owen, this is the second day we’ve been unable to take him to the schoolstead, maybe we should let Kenobi-”
More flashes.
The Force.
The Sacred Texts.
The face of a beautiful woman that Leia had shared with him, once he had trained her enough in the mind-arts. He dreams of a clone named Fives who almost saved them all. Of his Father again.
“-Beru? He’s speaking in his sleep, have…have you also heard him talking about…about his father’s business?”
“I have Owen, but I haven’t mentioned anything to him.”
“I haven’t mentioned anything either, and damn Kenobi, but I know he hasn’t.”
“...Owen, then how is he whispering these things? He has so much of his father in him.”
“I know Beru, I know…It’s what I’m afraid of.”
Luke wraps himself deeper in shields. Uncle Owen’s words feel too much like a rebuke. He imagines them as thick blankets to protect from cold, but Tatooine is a hot planet, and Luke is burning up, just like his Father before him.
“-Owen we need to take him somewhere, to someone! Can we get a doctor out here, he’s not going to survive this much longer!”
“The new imperials at Mos Eisley restricted the motion of the doctors to keep them close in case they needed them, I-I think, Beru… I’m going to get Kenobi.”
Beru sighs in despair.
“Whatever’s happening with Luke, it’s got to do with the Jedi tricks. We need him.”
Luke drowns.
And then,
Leia holds out her hand.
“Honestly, farmboy! When I complimented you on jumping right into the rebellion, I didn’t think you’d take it literally!” Leia laughed gently, eyes glimmering with equal parts worry and fondness as she helped Luke up. It had been the first time he’d ever seen a natural lake. He had jumped in. He had abruptly swallowed water, and Leia had to help him up. She taught him over the course of several days, until she was sure he could handle it. She did not want to lose anyone else.
“Alderaan has magnificent lakes. Oceans. Rivers too. It’s a right of passage for our children to learn how to swim.” Leia had said. Her eyes had gone distant as she looked up at the night sky, as Luke looked up with her he was able to see her gaze on Alderaan’s home star. He noticed her usage of present tense. A part of him wanted to comfort her to not waste precious water, but instead he pretended to not notice her tears plink into the lake. There was plenty. It was okay to feel here.
Maybe it's okay to stay here. Forever. His sister was here, Han and Chewie were in the Falcon jeering as Luke floundered, but ready to jump in if needed. Wedge was waiting back at base.
“Luke. Youngling. You’ve worried your Aunt and Uncle, young one. It’s time to come home.”
A presence.
It feels like light, but a campfire that was dwindling from age and grief. And yet, Luke can feel it.
Him.
It’s Be-Obi-Wan.
The name ‘Ben’ meant something else, now.
Obi-wan has slipped behind Luke’s shields, gently trying to lift the blankets Luke had used to shield his mind like a child covering their face to hide from the monsters in the closet.
The blankets that had been stifling, suffocating him.
Luke had almost snuffed his own light!
Obi-wan was radiating concern and love for Luke. Luke can distantly feel his Aunt’s and Uncle's own worries.
And yet…
“Where?” Luke murmurs. What was home? The homestead? His X-wing? Rebel base? The Falcon? His Jedi temple he built with the homesteading skills Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had taught him, the same temple his Nephew would burn?
All those visions flash across his mind, and he feels Obi-Wan's deep confusion, shock, awe, and horror. Horror as he realizes that yes, Luke is not just neck-deep but submerged in force-visions.
“Home. Here on Tatooine, with your Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. Your family.”
“Are you my family too?”
This resonates so deeply with Obi-Wan that Luke feels like the Time-Keepers on Ferrix. He had visited it for the memorial of the rebellion’s beginnings there, for Cassian Andor, and the time-keeper had hammered for Andor’s funeral, sweat and tears flying as if he could hammer out his grief, and Luke remembers how it felt in his bones.
Obi-Wan is so deeply affected at Luke’s words that a memory of his own slips past his shields and to Luke.
He sees Leia as a child.
This is a recent memory, perhaps a year or two ago. Luke’s questions must have reminded Obi-wan of it.
“You’re lying to me.”
“Leia-”
“Are you my real father?”
A pause.
“...I wish I could say I was, but no, I’m not.” Obi-wan says gently, and Luke can feel his heartbreak, his love for Leia too.
“Sometimes I try to imagine what he was like.” Leia says sadly. Luke knew she fully accepted her adoptive-parents, but a part of you always wondered.
“I know that feeling.” Obi-wan says in comforting solidarity.
Another memory.
“Sometimes when I look at her…I see her mothers face.”
Padme Amidala’s face flashes to the front of Luke’s mind, the image shared with him from Leia. And Luke can see the similarities.
Obi-Wan is able to control himself. Luke can feel his self-admonishment at offering Luke a glimpse of family he was separated from for their own safety.
Luke gently prods Obi-Wan to answer his question.
“You remember me, old Ben Kenobi, a little up on the sand flats?”
“I do!” Luke says happily.
“I…I am a friend, Luke. Your Uncle is so worried he let me in to help you.”
“Liar.” Luke says, still happy.
Obi-Wan startles.
“You’re family. You love me. I can feel it.”
Obi-Wan’s heart breaks.
Another memory.
“You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!”
Something about the word ‘love’ was like throwing sand into the eyes of Jedi. But both of them can feel the Force resonate with truth. It always sounded like wind chimes to Luke, the ones Aunt Beru put up that warned of the truth of a coming sandstorm, but also truth of the winds that would bring new, humid air for them to farm. Others said it sounded like a crisp waterfall, or the sleigh bells of Stewjon.
Obi-Wan desperately collects himself.
He’s rendered speechless, an achievement in and of itself considering his moniker of ‘The Negotiator".
Luke decides to help this along.
“I love you too.” Luke murmurs, sending the feelings of love and comfort to Obi-Wan.
The man would fall to his knees if they were corporal, instead of these luminous beings. The Skywalkers seem destined to break his heart.
“No more lying?” Luke asks.
Obi-Wan stays silent, because he can’t promise that. It’s an impressive amount of grief and self-loathing and love.
“Come home, and we can talk further, alright?”.
Truth.
Obi-Wan holds out his hand.
And as he did with Leia so long ago, in a galaxy far, far away and maybe one that would never again exist, Luke takes it.