Chapter Text
Pain! Pain exploded in her mind, behind her eyes, splitting her head. Pain, worse than anything she could remember. She was being ripped out of herself. She wanted to cling to Luke but her hands were unable to find him. He was so close but she couldn’t touch him. She tried to call his name only to feel her throat filling with thick, acrid smoke. She recognized it. It was the smell of bodies burning on the sand of Jakku when she was little more than a child. Then she heard screams of the dying in burning houses when she was a full-fledged Jedi Knight. She tasted ash in her mouth. The pain got worse.
From somewhere, beyond the smoke and pain, she heard someone calling her name.
“Rey! Rey come back damn it! REY!”
Luke? It sounded like his voice, and yet so unlike him. He was so angry. Master Skywalker had no reason to be so mad at her. She was his best and brightest student. She wanted to stay a little longer in the small bed, with Luke. Hidden in the smoke and ashes of her failures.
“REEEEEEEEEEEY!”
This time it sounded like a roar. Like a wounded lion. Like thunder in a desert storm. She felt the dark ripples through the Force. She felt black, slimy tentacles wrapping themselves around her. Pulling her out of the small bed in the ruins of Echo Station. Away from Luke who was still there, his face covered in soot.
She fought back. She wanted to stay with Luke. She could still see him in bed, looking up at her as she was floating away. A dark cloud was surrounding her. The tentacles were squeezing her body without mercy, without pause. She felt her ribcage cracking. She couldn’t breathe.
She heard a small voice from nowhere.
“Luke, you have to let her go!”
“NO!”
Another roar. The lion was in pain.
She felt a blast of the Force and the slimy grip eased a fraction. She squirmed and tried to find her way back to bed. The bed was on fire beneath her. Luke was there. Calm. Eyes closed. Allowing the fire to consume him.
She engaged all her strength to break the hold of the darkness. She heard the tentacles snapping, one by one under her will. The pressure lessened. She could break free!
Then suddenly, her mind was split open, and pain poured through, drowning her. Pain so intense she no longer sensed guilt. So intense she forgot about being in Luke’s arms. So intense, she could no longer let herself die.
She opened her eyes and gasped. She chocked on the breathing tube stuck down her throat. She tried to make sense of where she was. She was floating in a transparent, gel-like substance. She reached out with her hands and felt smooth rounded confines. She was in a… tank? She was in the medical bay? She heard a heavy thump, as of a body falling. She forced her eyes open. The left one didn’t open but the right one obeyed her enough to be able to see Luke, fallen to his knees in front of her tank.
Leia Organa was knelt next to him, but her eyes met Rey’s. The young Jedi couldn’t stand the intensity of that gaze. She closed her eye. When she opened it again, Luke was walking out of the room. Without looking back. Rey saw that the door that closed behind him had a big dent. As if a body had been hurled into it.
A few minutes later, Rey was in bed, the medical droids were fixing bandages and attaching sensors. Her throat was sore from the respirator tube, but she tried to drink a little from the cup Leia handed her.
“What happened?” she mouthed the words more than utter the sounds.
“You crashed on Hoth. By the time Luke got you out, you were unconscious. He brought you back, but until we managed to get here, you passed out again. You’ve been in that tank for several hours. Almost no signs of life. About an hour ago, you died,” Leia said.
“Died?!”
Leia nodded, and when Rey asked “How?” she took in a deep breath.
“I think you know that better than me. You should rest now,” Leia said and kissed her forehead before she left.
Rey thought about what happened. She remembered the crash. The memories of her dreams were fading away. Luke kissing her. Just a dream. She tried to remember the pain and darkness, but those memories were also fading away. All that was left was a terrible conclusion. Luke Skywalker had used the Dark Side to bring her back from death.
She took off the sensors and when the medical droid showed up, she just waved it away with a flick of her wrist. She used the Force to be able to get out of bed, and leaned on it every step she took. She let intuition guide her to him.
Luke was outside the medical center, his head tilted to the sky. Anyone would think he was looking at the stars. Rey knew he was not seeing anything. She could sense him tethered to sanity by the thinnest thread. Fear seeped into her soul. Was she too late? He couldn’t… He wouldn’t… after everything… he wouldn’t turn to the Dark Side like this.
“I never understood my father more,” he said.
She exhaled a breath she didn’t know she was holding. He could still discern her. He was still… sane.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“Brought you back.”
“What did you do?” she repeated, reaching for his hand.
He flinched, and pulled away from her touch.
“I could feel you slipping away. Could feel you… dissipating into the Force. You were happy. It was everything I should want for you.”
“I was happy,” she said.
He turned his head, surprised at her admission. He probably expected her to try to comfort him. His eyes begged her for that reassurance. Even if it was a lie. She thought about it. Maybe one of the reasons they were at this point was that they held back too much. So many times when they were close, she chose to honor his teachings and not her heart. The little voice from the darkness of her shriveled heart was stronger this time. There would never be another moment so perfect.
“You brought me back tainted,” she said dispassionately.
His lips formed the first words to deny the truth they both knew. He hung his head, defeated. His act had not only pulled him into the Dark, but had also stained her. She watched him struggle to accept this new reality. Watched him drown in new waves of guilt. Watched him finding nothing to help him stop the fall.
“I’m cold,” she said.
It was all it took to bring him back. He took that last damnable step and put his arms around her. It hurt. His embrace hurt. The muscles in her arms as she encircled his waist hurt. But it was the kind of pain that reminded her she was alive.
“We should go inside,” he said. “You are shaking.”
“Not from the cold.”
She paused, not really waiting for a reply. Listening for his heart beat. As she had hoped, it sounded louder. Faster.
“I’m not dead, Luke. And I waited long enough.”
She wondered if he would say no again. There wouldn’t be a not now. This time it was going to be a never.
The kiss came unexpectedly. It had nothing tentative about it. There was no trace of I’m doing this because you’re hurt and I feel sorry for you. It did not feel like a goodbye kiss. It was the first kiss she wanted for more years than she cared to remember.
“Ok. Let’s get you into bed.”
He said it so casually that Rey worried she might get her hopes up for nothing.
“Medical bay?” she asked, resigned to wait for a few more years for the next kiss.
“Oh, no. My room is much closer.”
She didn’t know what made her squeal, his words or the way he picked her up. His room was a lot further than the medical bay but they made it there a lot sooner than she thought they would. After all the years of pining, Rey found herself flustered to be with him. With the same thing on their minds.
“Rey, relax,” he said sensing her discomfort. “You’re badly injured. Nothing is going to happen.”
She probably looked relieved and disappointed at the same time because Luke added with a smile.
“We’re just going to huddle for warmth. Nothing else is going to happen for now.”
She could live with “for now”.