Work Text:
“Stretch out with your feelings.”
Beneath the blast shield of the helmet, the old man’s voice mingled with the sound of his own breaths. Softness over steel, metallic echoes enforcing the command. But he still couldn’t see a thing.
Luke shifted his shoulders, loosening muscles as he centered the lightsaber before his chest. Electric thrums tingled his palms, a nervous heartbeat scrabbled in his throat. Too much of everything. He tried to picture the luminous blade, a thing that felt almost alive. He pictured Ben Kenobi, halfway across the passenger lounge, calm and focused in a way that he wasn’t. And, on the far side of the triangle, Han Solo’s volatile presence, a disturbance like a whirlwind over Tatooine’s jagged horizon. Both of them watching him.
Along his spine coiled static tension, at odds with his mind that darted in every direction. Breathe, he told himself, don’t think, and it’s gonna be just like flying...
Don’t think.
Blood and pulse and breath, the notion of flight washed through him, as if memory had transported him into the middle of a ‘hopper race. There’d been moments when abrupt clarity burst in on his senses. When time dropped out of a high-speed lurch, the frosted lines of rocky obstacles revealed in a radiant now...
Now.
It rushed towards him again, the semi-darkness dissolving into zones of emptiness and light. Sensation bloomed into something vast and unnamed that pulsed back through him, and one moment contained it all: Ben, Solo, the ship running on braced energies through shifts of time and space. Luke breathed in sharply. Change, possibility, expectation all caught up in a single burst and jarred him from a state much like sleep.
At a forty-degree angle above and to the right hovered the remote, a node of mechanical energy he could predict just like his old skyhopper’s slight listing, ever since he’d rejiggered the antigrav coil.
Something moved through him at the exact moment when the remote snapped into action. Something fused mind to motion and turned out lightning-quick parries of the ‘saber that caught each low-voltage bolt. Accurate strikes falling in thoughtless succession. But no time now to be startled. No time to gasp at the touch of pure brilliance that ripped through him, energy too intense to be contained within his own muscles and bones.
“You see, you can do it.” Kenobi’s voice, distant, a beacon that marked the bounds of reality.
Struck speechless, breathless, Luke pulled off the helmet just in time to hear Solo drawl, “I’d call it luck.”
“In my experience, there is no such thing.” Ben again, deflecting the Corellian’s derision with a touch of humor.
“Look, good against remotes is one thing.” Dark eyes met Luke’s, provocative and full of mockery as Solo leaned over the side of his chair. “Good against the living? That’s something else.” The Corellian flared his amusement like a challenge, until a beep from the console demanded his attention. “Looks like we’re coming up on Alderaan.”
He was out of his seat in a moment. But the moment stretched and filled out with recollection, and Luke averted his eyes too late. At the top of his chest, Solo’s open shirt revealed tanned skin and a thin sheen of sweat.
Perhaps it was his first contact with the Force that’d left him hyper-aware, all too conscious of the man’s physical presence. Luke breathed out slowly as elation clogged into something troubled and restless. At least the atmosphere seemed to lighten once Solo had left. He looked at Ben and couldn’t wait to share the new, unsettling knowledge.
“You know, I did feel something. I could almost see the remote.”
Ben’s eyes searched him. “That’s good.”
His voice was firm once again, no hint of distraction transmitting when a hand clasped Luke’s shoulder. Still, although the deep furrows between his brows had smoothed out, a guarded worry lingered behind Ben’s smile.
As if millions of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced, Luke remembered, and it still made no sense.
“You’ve taken your first step into a larger world,” Kenobi added.
I know. It lashed through the stillness of his mind though it should have been a shout, full of wildness and exuberance, like a whoop at the end of a race. Luke smiled, nodded, grateful for Ben’s guidance, and he stepped out into the corridor like he was passing the jagged arch of wind-gnawed rocks that marked the finish in Beggar’s Canyon. A larger world, and a smaller world left behind.
Don’t think...
Left wreathed in black smoke and a sweet, cloying stench, the small world of a homestead in the middle of nowhere. Luke’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. Don’t think of it, don’t remember them that way.
Not Owen, and not Beru, just blackened bones fragile as twigs from desert brush. The memory of smoke filled the space that’d opened up inside him, choking and bitter like regret. Gone. Gone like wind-patterns in the sand, but scorched into his mind, ashes to the burning of all his confused excitement. Too much.
Too much that he wanted to ask, and too little time left now, as they drew closer to their destination. Headed towards the cockpit, Luke moved on automatic, but his mind dragged him in the opposite direction and replayed the night before...
...the relative quiet of ship’s night settling over the low purr of the Falcon’s engines. Ben had retired to the passenger cabin some time ago, disappointing him.
There is much to talk about, young Luke, but first I need to rest.
Right. He was tired himself, and wired on adrenaline that merged through his dazed exhaustion. Luke wandered around the unfamiliar ship, barely a step ahead of memories that would ambush him the moment he paused, the moment he lay down in a darkened cabin that smelled faintly of burned insulation. Afraid to sleep.
So much that I need to know, Ben, don’t you realize―?
It had been the longest day of his life, from his frantic chase across the Jundland Wastes, past the startling blaze of his father’s lightsaber, to the murk of a Mos Eisley cantina where they’d hooked up with Solo. Racing ahead of daylight, so that the violet shimmers of suns’ set didn’t encroach on them until the battered freighter shot from its berth, trailed by Imperial blasterfire.
He was climbing down the gunwell when a jolt passed through the deck plates, then another. Luke tightened his grip on the access ladder’s rungs, steadying himself as his breath caught. Light speed travel ― nothing but an alluring concept until now ― was more than enough to take his breath away, the thought and the feel of sliding through unhinged dimensions. Fluctuations in the drive field had to cause these disruptions.
Luke set his teeth against a shiver of apprehension and breathed out slowly. Nothing to worry about, if Solo and the Wookiee weren’t concerned. The Corellian might be a notorious grifter, but he sure kept an eye out for his own best interest.
Ten thousand, all in advance.
A flicker of remembered annoyance scooted across the memory. Solo’s low, lazy drawl ― like it was all a game to him ― dashing one more teenage fantasy. The man didn’t come anywhere near the holovids’ version of noble pirates. He was too calculating, way too earthy and real. The look in his eyes too close to laughter.
Angry metallic clanks scattered those notions and directed Luke’s steps to the rim of a maintenance pit. Draped across one of the coolant pipes, Solo was working at a snarl of wiring with a low-powered fusion torch, tense muscles stretching the shirt across his back. He’d dropped his vest beside the pit, a black nest for a jumble of tools.
Luke’s glance swept across the long legs and hips, to the hand’s breadth of bare skin where Solo’s shirt had slipped from his pants ― and something shimmied through him at the sight. Dark hair falling into his face, Solo looked ruffled and vulnerable.
“Hand me the ‘spanner there, willya, kid?”
Solo’s sudden demand shot another small jolt through him, as if he’d been caught trespassing. Uneasiness thickened low in his belly.
“Sure...” After a moment’s delay, his roughened voice earned him a quick, probing glance from the man in the pit. How did you know I was here?
Amusement curled the Corellian’s mouth as he took the hydrospanner and returned his attention to the tangled wiring. “Thanks.” A clamp came loose with a sharp hiss. “Never been off-planet before, huh?”
That was an easy guess, and Luke wondered if the ship’s captain felt suddenly obliged to make conversation with his passengers. He shook his head, half-expecting Solo to take note of his response. “I’ve always wanted to, but...”
“Yeah.” Solo slid off the pipe, catching another clamp as it came unscrewed. “Listen, could you get down here for a sec? I’d finish a lot faster if somebody took care of the other end, and Chewie’s still busy in the cargo hold.”
“No problem.” Anything to work off the tension that kept him strung up and restlessly awake. Luke lowered himself into the cluttered pit, passing a glance across layers of untidy wiring and the cluster of power couplings.
“The primary stabilizer circuit burned out during our latest brush with the Imperials,” Solo explained, now slouched against a thick vertical pipe, its blue paint crusted with an oil film of years. “We’ve rerouted power supplies to the secondary circuit, but I didn’t get around to fixing the damage before we took off. See that coupling over there?”
“You want to bypass that, so you can reconnect the circuit?”
“That’s right.” Solo held the ‘spanner out to him and unclipped a diagnoser from his belt. “You know how to handle this? You could start unhooking the thing while I take some readings over here.”
Luke was at it in a moment, intent to prove his expertise as a mechanic, and set off drizzling white sparks that bit the back of his hand.
“Careful.” The Corellian chuckled, a glint lighting in his eyes. “This ain’t anything like spiffing up an old T-16.”
“I’d kinda figured that out myself.” Luke glared at him across the cramped space, a flush crawling over his skin. “And how d’you think you’re gonna make this work anyway? Your circuitry’s corroding to bits where it wasn’t fried.”
“Yeah, well.” Solo pulled up his shoulders. “We’re gonna patch it up as soon as we can afford it. It’ll hold together ‘til we reach Alderaan.”
“Very reassuring,” Luke muttered, but a smile came stealing up all the same, just because the Corellian had conceded him a point. And was returned, a crooked smile tossed at him before Solo ignited the fusion torch once more.
Some of the stiff tension eased away from Luke’s shoulders and back. A thin trickle of sweat coursed down his chest as he took the busted coupling apart, mind bent on conduits and power signatures and nothing besides that.
“So... you got family back on Tatooine?” The question cut into buzzing silence just as the mended circuit came back on line.
“Not anymore.”
It was all he could say, his throat tight around words that might have amounted to a casual reply. When Luke raised his head, he found himself the target of a dark glance ― suddenly void of mockery and arrogance and that much harder to endure for it.
“Right. I know what it’s like.”
Just that, another concession yielded in a lowered voice that touched him strangely. And Solo’s expression hardened again in another second, abrupt candor shuttered from sight.
Tell me about it. But he couldn’t ask that. Couldn’t, because the words would’ve jammed in his own throat if Solo had asked as much of him, if a careless question dragged up the memory of the burned homestead ―
His fingers clutched the hydrospanner so hard, he could feel the subtle energy flows pulse against his palm.
Ben’s the only one I’ve got left now. The only connection to eighteen years divided between frustration and fantasies. Just a crazy old wizard, in Uncle Owen’s words. I don’t think he exists anymore. Luke straightened out, listening after the note of warning. He feared you might follow old Obi-Wan on some damned-fool idealistic crusade, just like your father did...
And he could suddenly feel Han’s eyes on him. “Are we done here?”
Before Solo got a chance to answer, another flutter in the drive field rocked the freighter and jostled them into each other.
For a moment Luke was pressed up against the hard length of the Corellian’s body, live power snapping through him, then a guttural growl echoed through the pit. Chewbacca was gazing down from the corridor, bared fangs greeting the sight of them. But what could have been a show of violent temper was met by a low chuckle from Han, a vibration against Luke’s breastbone where they were still touching.
“All right, all right, Chewie, ain’t nothin’ to worry about.” And with that, Solo shoved him back, the rough gesture at odds with his lazy smile.
Luke swallowed. “If you guys don’t need any more help, I guess I’ll catch a few winks.”
He climbed from the pit and didn’t turn back. Dizzied energy spread through his body, the kind that he’d felt each time his ‘hopper lurched into top speed, almost out of control. Maybe he was trying to outrace his own memories, hurtling away from the past. And maybe he’d win that race, too, like so many others.
...half-lit privacy welcomed him as he stepped into the cabin. From it filtered Ben’s even breaths and the vague paleness of his robe. Two cots folded down from the walls, leaving just enough room to move between them.
“Come in. I was meditating.” The old man leaned back against the ribbed bulkhead, shadows revealing a smile as Luke’s eyes adjusted. “It has been a long time since I left Tatooine, and longer since I last traveled to the galactic Core.”
But at least you’ve been there. Luke’s glance caught on an oil smear across the left leg of his pants, and he tugged his tunic down out of old habit. Too many times, Aunt Beru had sighed at hopelessly soiled clothes ― don’t think of it, don’t ―
“And you never wanted to leave?” he asked, his voice too loud in the narrow confinement.
“Oh, I did, many times over the years,” Obi-Wan acknowledged. “For a variety of reasons.”
A Jedi knight ― the single survivor, for all Luke could tell ― living in the desolation of sand and barren heat. In hiding.
“Tell me about it.” He sat down on the cot next to Ben, releasing a breath. Holding himself still around the pressure that expanded from the bottom of his chest.
“About the reasons why I wanted to leave―” Grizzled eyebrows rose, suggesting a lost look of innocence on the old man’s face, “―or the reason why I didn’t?”
Luke smiled at him. “Anything. All of it.”
“I’m afraid we don’t have enough time for that.” Ben slipped his hands into the wide sleeves of his tunic. Selecting memories. “At first I didn’t think I could survive on Tatooine.”
“I know the feeling,” Luke agreed. The drag of seasons, the urge to fly, the promise of freedom hanging over each day with the glare of a wide open sky. All shored up inside him now, a simmer of diffuse expectations, the future.
Ben slanted him a thoughtful glance. “And you tried to escape any way you could. Your aunt and uncle worried that you would get yourself killed in one of those breakneck races.”
“How do you know?”
A hand lifted to the back of his neck, resting there as if to focus his attention. “I talked to them, from time to time.” Gentler than Uncle Owen’s hand, and gently admonishing. “And I kept an eye on you whenever I could.”
Because of my father. Luke shifted on the cot, trying to ease into a more comfortable position. He must’ve asked Ben to watch over me.
“I could see how your spirit grew more restless with every passing season,” Obi-Wan continued. “The Force is your legacy, Luke.”
The solemn tone fell like a shadow across the relief that gripped him, more than recognition of his demand to be trained as a Jedi. “Why did you never tell me, until yesterday?”
“Your uncle would not allow it.” Ben settled back, a small shrug discarding years of wasted opportunities. “I regret that your education cannot be anything like the training I received. The times were very different.”
“What was it like?” Luke asked, after a quick breath. “How did you find out that you could be a Jedi?”
“Oh, I had a great deal of confidence in myself, but it wasn’t for me to decide,” Ben said wryly. “Before I entered Jedi training, I was schooled for years. I learned to accept the Force, to embrace all its facets and open my mind to its guidance.”
“But before that,” Luke pressed, “did you know? Did you feel anything... anything that made you think―”
“That I was... special?”
He dipped his head, prodding diffuse notions for adequate words.
“It’s difficult to remember, after all these years,” Ben answered. “But I was certainly ambitious. I thought of myself as a fighter for justice more than a mediator or an instructor. I had much to learn, by the time I grew old enough to begin the training.” His tone changed midway, losing the note of tacit humor.
“And then, who taught you?”
“I had a master...” For several moments, Obi-Wan’s attention seemed to drift. His eyes, pale as the sky during the dry season, focused into the past. “I was much younger than you when he accepted me as his apprentice, to protect, to teach and to guide me. And in many ways, he raised me.”
“Like a father?”
Something flashed across the old man’s face, a sharp emotion like steel beneath the lines of tiredness. Ben’s tone had turned flat when he answered. “Yes. Like a parent at times, and yet...” One hand clasped loosely around the wrist of the other, he rubbed at the protruding bone. “I lost him when I was several years older than you, and fully trained... and yet I wasn’t ready.”
Stark grief struck through his composure, and Luke reached out to touch his arm. Through the cloth of robe and tunic, he could feel the tautness of wiry muscle.
“I haven’t spoken of him for many years,” Obi-wan said slowly, “and I didn’t think that it would make a difference. It seems that I was wrong.” He covered Luke’s hand with his own, the sun-browned skin traced with spidery white lines around the knuckles.
“I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“Don’t be. Grief is as much a part of life as every other emotion.” A long breath fled, as if easing inner pressure. “We have to accept our losses. My master died just as he lived, in full accord with the moment. There were others who counseled and instructed me when I was in need of it.”
But you still miss him. Luke’s glance wandered and caught on the unfamiliar wrap of the bleached tunic beneath the old man’s robes. The frayed hem evidenced years of cleaning and drying in the suns’ blaze. A keepsake Obi-Wan wanted close to his skin? Accept our losses, how?
He tried to picture Ben’s isolation, all those years of living beyond the Dune Sea, in careful anonymity. The kids in Anchorhead making fun of the strange old hermit who showed up and disappeared like a wraith from the desert.
Luke shook his head. “How did you manage?”
Impossible to imagine what it must’ve been like for Ben, to live that long and not burst with frustration. Waiting, always... waiting. Coils of stifled energy condensed into one word. Luke could feel their restless thrums again, seeking a new direction. Unrest climbed higher through his body.
“I had a purpose, a hope.” Ben met his eyes, features composed once more, his gaze unclouded. “I always knew the day would come when your legacy could no longer be denied. When you would come to me for instruction.”
To make up for the loss of my father? Another small pang tightened Luke’s chest. He’d pictured him broad-shouldered and fair-haired, with a spacer’s pale skin, the scents of a thousand worlds clinging to him. A navigator with a reckless streak who’d been killed in an accident. A lie.
And from the dregs of fantasy emerged a new outline, blurred by rumor and speculation. A Jedi knight, unfathomable and unpredictable behind the blaze of the lightsaber he’d left for his son. Larger than life, murdered and betrayed.
Killed around the same time Obi-Wan died. Conveniently effaced from his son’s sheltered life. Not dead, not yet... He’s me. Anything was possible.
Luke’s head snapped up, a new suspicion racing through him like wildfire. “Tell me more about my father.”
“I shall do that. Later, when you are ready.”
“But―”
“Patience, Luke.” The stern tone was softened by a gentle squeeze of his hand. “I know what you are thinking, and the answer is no. I am not your father.” Obi-wan paused to let him absorb that. “You’ve always missed his presence, and I cannot replace him.”
“I didn’t mean to...” Bewildered, Luke trailed off into a small shrug.
“I know that all of this is very confusing for you,” Ben continued, “yet you must know you can turn to me. Consider me your friend as much as your teacher.” His hand rose to cup Luke’s shoulder, the offer underlined by a soothing touch. “Whatever it is that you need, don’t be afraid to ask.”
Luke nodded without conviction and stared uncomfortably at the bulkhead. Just ask? He’d never wanted so much before. As if he’d fly apart from the random energy that built in fits and starts. Accumulating from the haze of change, shards of events glistening like the jagged pieces of a puzzle.
The princess. Shimmers of a dream, lucid like an unknown possibility. And now, the vibrations of incredible speed that surged from the deck plates straight into his bloodstream. The promise of adventure and fulfillment taunting his senses.
“You must focus your energies,” Ben’s voice overlaid his thoughts.
Focus. Like the galvanized calm that came when he pushed his skyhopper to the limits, mind and body attuned to a crystalline flow of sensation. Like the quivers of elation when the Falcon’s hyperdrive engaged, and the pang of intense awareness he’d felt down in the maintenance pit, igniting at the look in Solo’s eyes ―
Something close to alarm flashed through him, and Luke tightened his grip on the old man’s forearm.
“Luke.”
The firm tone curbed his distraction, and he let go, shunting all those muddled notions aside.
“Do you know what it is that you’re feeling?” A glint of amusement deep in the light blue eyes, its bright spark deflecting older pains.
“I―” Flustered, Luke broke off, aware of the silent scrutiny and the unrelieved tension in his muscles, centered at the top of his spine. I wish I knew.
So, just ask. Half a hundred questions churned in his mind, half-formed and circling for a center, but what came out was, “And you trained this... Vader?”
Obi-Wan released him and sat back on the bunk. “Yes.” His chin lifted. “Yes, I did. And if I were to indulge regrets, a host of them would keep me company. Your training will be different.”
All the same, regret sharpened the lines around his mouth. Or guilt, Luke thought. His father had been a phantom all along, and if he’d just been cast into a new mold, it shouldn’t make a real difference ― not for him. Ben’s loss had to be more cutting, far more substantial than that.
“It’s impossible to bring back the past,” Ben continued soberly, “now that the Jedi order has fallen and our traditions have failed. And I should not attempt to predict your path or your choices.”
Luke could sense his withdrawal like a screen pulled up between them, a sudden distance carved by his question. “But I still want you to teach me―”
“Yes, of course,” Ben answered, with the same detachment he’d used at Luke’s refusal to accompany him to Alderaan. “Yet you must strive to understand your own motivations and feelings first and foremost. Consider them carefully.” He tucked both hands into his wide sleeves, arranging himself into a posture of repose. “We will begin soon. Now, try to rest yourself.”
“All right.” Luke pushed to his feet, at once disappointed and oddly relieved. “I’ll just...” Unrest tugged on him again, and he had to keep moving. “I need a shower.”
...on his way back from the head-and-shower cubicle, skin still prickling from the scrub of sonic cleansing, he wondered if anyone would care if he roamed the ship all night. Maybe he could tire himself out that way. But then a large shadow shifted noiselessly into the light. Luke found his path blocked by Chewbacca, and himself the target of a sharp, searching gaze.
“Everything all right?” he asked uncertainly. Still mystified by the Wookiee’s presence, the peculiar rapport between him and Solo.
No answer. Instead, the Wookiee cocked his head and... sniffed him. Deep blue eyes sliding half-closed as he sucked air through his nostrils in long drafts. A soft growl put an end to Chewbacca’s inspection.
Luke relaxed and tried a smile. “Guess that means I check out clean, huh?” He gestured in the direction of the shower.
The Wookiee gave a throaty rumble, perhaps a chortle, his bellow clearly an affirmative.
“Good.” Luke’s smile eased into something more natural as he brushed past. “Good night.”
Stretched out on his back, a short while later, he tried to even out his breaths. A pointless effort in the dark of the passenger cabin, too close and too unquiet with those lonely engine whispers. No matter how he tried to stop it, his thoughts flew back to Tatooine, scooting across sweeps of rock and sand like a ghost that couldn’t let go. All those wide open wastelands under a cloudless sky, and it’d felt like a trap for years. Season after season, he’d so longed to be gone, all afire with hopes and fantasies, and now —
On the edge of memory loomed the charred ruins, like a black pit just waiting to engulf him. The past, the life he’d resented, and his own impatience had burned it up in a single, insatiable flare. Don’t look. He squeezed his eyes shut and made himself listen to all the minor noises instead. The rustle of sheets from the other side of the cabin, the patterns of Ben’s breathing.
Something wasn’t right there. A fitful hitch when the old man inhaled, a hint of restless movement as he tugged on his blanket. Perhaps he still wrestled with the force of his own memories. Luke got up quietly and crossed the short distance.
“Are you all right?” He perched on the edge of the mattress.
Silence clogged and grew heavy, until Ben’s voice cut it like a knife. “I have my own demons to deal with. Don’t let that trouble you, Luke.”
He reached for Ben’s shoulder, but his hand came to rest over the ridge of his spine. Traced the quiet shudder of a breath, reaching deep into old regrets. “Is there... anything I can do?”
A brisk motion, perhaps a shake of the head, then Obi-Wan turned, dislodging his hand. “You should be sleeping.”
“But what about―”
“Don’t concern yourself.” The harsh note in that reply hovered between them, until the silence softened with a breath that was almost a sigh.
“You cannot share my burdens, nor will I be able share yours for very long,” Ben said obliquely. “It’s different when master and student live in constant closeness, their minds attuned to the Force and each other.”
“I need to learn so much,” Luke said, voice lowered at the hollow feeling in his gut. Obi-Wan’s answers left him adrift, on the verge of something as wide and daunting as deep space.
“Of course you do.” Forced calm yielded into sadness, perhaps resignation. “And you will learn what you need to know, though perhaps in ways I cannot foresee.
“Luke.” Another brief pause, gentle and hesitant. “Your greatest longings and your deepest truths will come to you through the Force.” The old man reached out to pat his arm. “Trust your feelings. That’s the best advice I can give you.”
“All right.” He tucked the words away, too confounded and tired now to consider them. “Good night, Ben.”
The old man’s breathing was quiet and steady when he returned to his own bed. Through the bulkhead ran threads of jangling energy. Luke placed his palm against it, and the supple pulse of flight followed him into sleep.
...he dreamed. A burble of voices and nervous drum rhythms wrapped around him in the crammed cantina, thick as smoke. Smoke abrading his lungs so that he couldn’t breathe when Han leaned across the table ― couldn’t hear the words that formed, though he was staring hard at Han’s mouth ― his eyes burning from the heat and the smell...
the smell of sulfur and sealant from the Falcon’s circuits, and through it...
the smell of charred flesh...
Don’t look.
A chill clawed through him, immense and defeating. But he could feel someone right behind him, moving closer, body heat grazing his skin like a shadow. A ripple ran through him, electric as anticipation, jolting him ―
― back into the crowding dark of the cabin and a craving that turned sharp as a blade in his belly. Too immediate for shape or direction, too raw between the drifts of unlocked memories. He could hear voices in the corridor, a low murmur that bobbed above the engines’ hum.
You have no idea how important that boy is.
Slipping again, from vague awareness into the slough of dreams, sliding under.
Until Ben’s hand closed around his shoulder. “Luke. Time to start your exercises.”
...the Falcon rocked wildly, and he stumbled into the cockpit, out of recollection, brought up short by the sight of rocky debris bombarding the ship.
“What’s going on?”
“Our position’s correct―” Solo kept checking the instruments and punching flight controls. “Except... no Alderaan.”
A sudden chill passed through the middle of Luke’s chest, Ben just a step behind him. “What do you mean? Where is it?”
“That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you, kid,” Solo said over his shoulder, “it ain’t there. It’s been totally blown away.”
His mind went through a quick loop ― as if a million voices cried out in terror ― while the old man watched those flying fragments ― and were suddenly silenced. Ben must have known.
* * *
“I can’t believe he’s gone.”
The princess sat so close that he could feel her breath on his cheek. “There was nothing you could have done.”
Again. Luke didn’t look at her. No longer the dazzling specter of his fancy, a definite presence beside him. Leia had braved loss and hazard like a veteran, and maybe that was why her concern couldn’t relieve the numbness that locked tight around him.
Ben must’ve known he’d die.
... died the way he lived, Obi-Wan’s words slipped through him, feeble reassurance that skittered across a minefield. Owen. Beru. And now, Ben.
Luke stared at his own hands, the impulse to ball them tight prickling along his nerves. Alone with scraps of advice like riddles and the furious protest that kept twisting inside him. A connection had slipped before it could stabilize, before he’d figured out what it might mean.
Rapid footsteps rang along the corridor. When he looked up, Han had skidded to a stop in the doorway, appraising them with the flash of a glance. “Come on, buddy, we’re not out of this yet.”
In an instant Luke was scrambling down the gunwell, dizzied by the shift of gravity that sent part of his mind spinning backwards, right down the core of stunned disbelief.
Two shadows battling on the very edge of his vision, blades raised ― scarlet and blue ― and he could see the pale eyes shift his way, the change in Obi-Wan’s expression, could see it so clearly now. Acceptance... and contentment.
Luke launched himself forward, into the gunner’s chair, sweeping a glance across the gunmount and targeting scopes while he slipped on the headset. Lucky he’d taken a tour of the entire ship last night, there was no time now for a test run.
“You in, kid?” The closeness of Han’s voice startled him. “Okay, stay sharp.”
A TIE fighter howled past, and Luke tracked the guns along its trajectory, a surge of adrenaline blanking every thought except one. Ben died so that we’d get away safe.
He swiveled the quad barrels and fired. Eyes on the flitting shapes that spewed lines of laser light, hands responding to Han’s barrage pattern from the other side of the gunwell. Until they fired in concert, Han’s blasts picking up where his left off, while the Falcon swooped and lurched.
Starlight darted in cold glints off the TIE fighter’s wings and brought back a different sight, the gleam of a sculpted black helmet. Ben’s adversary had been a black giant, black as starless midnight, when he struck him down. Vader. In reflex, Luke’s fingers tightened on the handgrip. Before him, the fighter exploded into waves of shrapnel and brilliant light. He swung around, suddenly lightheaded, and caught Han’s quick wave, the shadow of a grin.
“Great, kid! Don’t get cocky.”
He fired again. Mind afloat between the stars that veered past, the rhythmic pull and punch of the batteries, the heady feel of exposure in that glassy bubble. Don’t think...
A final burst of atomic brilliance faded into the glitter of distant stars, a green afterimage burning on his retina — and then he was shouting. “We did it!”
Triumph filled him inside out as he rushed back to the rungs, a giddy power, colliding with the first clear thought that formed. We’re safe. He almost stumbled into Han who’d cleared the gunwell a moment before him.
“Hey!” Strong hands clasped his shoulders and shook him lightly. “Well done.”
For a moment he felt as if he might fly apart into a thousand directions, and nothing but Solo’s grip still kept him together. “Thanks,” Luke managed.
The residual tension on Han’s face eased into a lopsided grin. No, more like a smile, something that reached his eyes and dissolved the wary sarcasm. “Guess it’s true what the old man said...”
“What’s that?” Still breathless from the wild current that sang through his nerves.
“That you’re special.”
And that slow smile warmed him.
Do you know what it is that you’re feeling?
His own smile was only just forming as Han retreated from the moment’s openness, down the corridor. Another step, and Luke caught a muttered “Can’t believe I said that.”
Easy, perhaps this could be easy. Just... reach out with your feelings ―
“You too,” he answered, no matter if Han heard him or not.
He turned, pivoting into a split second of perfect balance, the hazed sense of something vast and alive condensed into a fierce bright pang. Ben? I can still feel it...
But no answer came, not the bodiless voice that had urged him to run, and the feeling passed as he took another step forward. Another switch flipped over ― from grief and fury to the high flight of battle, and back again. Exhilaration lingered in his body, a swift, liquid pulse.
What now? What d’I do without Ben to teach me? Luke stopped to lean against the bulkhead. Aimless energy coursed just beneath the surface and washed through him. It was all he’d ever wanted, this suffusing sense of unparalleled speed, all he’d ever imagined for his future. A hotshot pilot exploring the galaxy, like his father before him. He closed his eyes. It wouldn’t be enough anymore. Torn away from everything, in the grip of change, he’d have to find his path alone. But he was free now, free to chose.
And it would be just like flying.
* * * * *