Chapter Text
Luke Skywalker was hiding.
He wasn’t hiding particularly well, since ducking into the only hut with a door and locking it behind him while being followed wasn’t very subtle. He’d never been very good at hide-and-seek. Growing up on Tatooine the game had consisted of ducking behind a dune, hiding under the sand or crouching behind the only rock in the area.
Unsurprisingly, hide-and-seek hadn’t been very popular on Tatooine. Particularly after one too many children injured themselves burying themselves in the sand. And then there was the time someone unearthed a baby Sarlaac.
Luke didn’t like to think about that incident. There were a lot of things he avoided thinking about.
His sister, his brother-in-law, his friends, his murdered students, his fallen students, his fascist-fanboy nephew, his non-existent love life, who the heck Snoke was, why he’d come to Ach-to in the first place, where he’d left his lightsaber, where he’d parked his x-wing, who thought storing actual books in a tree on a damp island was a good idea…
One the other hand he thought about why the Jedi should end a lot. And dying. Waiting to die. It probably wasn’t healthy. He’d talk to Leia and Han about it but that wasn’t possible while he was hiding out on a chilly, damp island that made his Tatooine raised bones ache in his old age.
Why was he here again?
Luke was jolted from his spiralling thoughts by a pounding on his door several magnitudes louder than the strange girl’s previous efforts. More forceful too; the door flew off its hinges and crashed into the opposite wall.
How rude, he thought, decades spent in 3CPO’s company rubbing off on him.
“Chewie?” he exclaimed, recognising the cranky roar and surprised to see his old friend in the doorway. The Wookie looked – and sounded – a bit pissed off. Luke ignored that, noticing that while the girl was hovering behind, someone (two someones even) was absent. “Where’s Han?”
Chewbacca took in the sparse living quarters of his old friend and sighed at what the Jedi Master had been reduced to. It wasn’t the austerity that troubled him. He’d been alive long enough to remember the flourishing Jedi order of the Republic before the Empire; they hadn’t worn simple robes merely to blend in with the common people.
No, it was the man himself who worried Chewbacca. Where was his hopeful optimism, his deep compassion that had reached Darth Vader himself? Where was the wise and thoughtful Jedi he’d grown into after confronting the Sith? Where was the caring friend who’d thrown himself into danger to protect his friends? Chewbacca had already watched one dear friend fall apart and die over the fall of Ben Solo; he couldn’t bear it a second time.
Chewbacca explained the situation as well as he could, which was difficult with Han’s death still so near. Rey finished with the official request from the Resistance for Luke’s aid. Chewbacca still wasn’t sure why Leia hadn’t come herself. Not taking possession of Anakin’s old lightsaber made some sense due to her complicated feelings regarding her birth father. But avoiding her brother? Was she holding a grudge for Luke blocking off their connection so she couldn’t find him? Rey needed Jedi training, but there was no reason Leia couldn’t have come too.
Stubborn Skywalkers, Chewbacca cursed inwardly.
“Go away,” Luke told Rey, “I’m not coming.” Chewbacca repeated his curse aloud. “There’s nothing you can say that will convince me otherwise,” he told the Wookie.
Chewbacca tried anyway. That’s what friends did. “Your sister needs you,” he growled.
“Leia’s strong.”
“The republic needs the Jedi.”
“I thought you said the republic was destroyed and the First Order has taken over?”
“The Hosnian system wasn’t the entire Galactic Republic,” Chewbacca nearly rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, that didn’t make much sense…” the Jedi muttered. “But it’s time for the Jedi to end.”
Chewbacca said a very vile word that didn’t quite translate to basic. It lasted for five full seconds and Rey’s eyes were wide at the end of it.
Luke had grown up on Tatooine and spent his young adulthood fighting in the Rebellion. He didn’t so much as blink. “The force doesn’t need the Jedi, it’s vanity to say otherwise.”
“Why will protect the galaxy from the perversions of the dark side?” Chewbacca asked. He didn’t usually indulge in philosophy but he’d fought beside Jedi during the clone wars and had picked up a few things. He picked up just as much from Luke himself as he was piecing the Jedi Order back together.
Luke hesitated.
“Who will train force sensitives and give them the tools to fight the temptations of the dark?”
“Well, it shouldn’t be the Jedi,” Luke said defensively.
“You want a group of benevolent force users who perform the same function as the Jedi…to not be Jedi?” Chewbacca was almost embarrassed for his old friend to be saying something so nonsensical.
“I can’t win a war singlehanded with my ‘laser sword’,” Luke switched arguments and Chewbacca realised words wouldn’t be enough.
A ‘laser sword’, who even said that? Hearing his friend denigrate the noble weapon of a Jedi was the last straw. Chewbacca went with his initial impulse and simply picked up the Jedi master, carrying him out the door.
Luke complained of course. Loudly and at length with curses that made Rey’s eyebrows drift up to her hairline and wish she wasn’t quite so fluent in Huttese.
“Bring his things,” Chewbacca told the girl. He was having unwelcome flashbacks to the many times he’d had to pick up a tantruming Ben Solo as a child.
Rey blinked out of her shock and quickly tossed Luke’s few belongings onto the bed, tying them into a bundle with the blanket. This wasn’t how she’d pictured things going - even so recently as the first minute she’d held the saber out to Luke - but Chewbacca had known the man for decades and she’d bow to his greater knowledge.
Chewbacca heard Rey clatter down the many stairs after him and nodded approvingly. He would let her pilot the Falcon back to the resistance. She was the one with the beacon and he still wasn’t quite up to sitting in Han’s chair.
It was slightly tricky carrying a protesting adult down to where the Falcon was but since Luke hadn’t simply used the force to free himself, Chewbacca didn’t think Luke’s protests were too genuine. Creative and filthy but not genuine.
It worried him that Luke wasn’t using the force. But then had anything happened on this island that made the slightest bit of sense? Chewbacca wasn’t too worried though; Leia would sort him out.
Which probably meant Luke should be the worried one.