Work Text:
He held her for the first time the day she was born. Small, wrinkled, and pink, her sharp cries were the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. Her mother handed her to him with a tired smile, arms nearly shaking in both exhaustion and exhilaration. The medical droid repeated her congratulations and drew back.
“Hello little one,” he whispered. His breath caught in his throat as he ran his fingers down her soft cheek, and for the first time her crying began to calm. He thought of how her scrunched up eyes would likely appear blue, like his, when they first open, but who knows if they’d stay that way?
He was able to feel the connection to his child while her mother was still pregnant, but this was another thing altogether. As her tiny fingers gently rested on his own, he could almost see a flash of light, their souls intertwined. Any darkness lurking within him was banished. He had felt the bonds of love for Leia, for his father, and in a different way, for her mother. But this was different, and he knew some of it wasn’t the Force at all. This was his entire world suddenly becoming the bundle against his chest. His girl. His baby girl.
A tear fell against her blanket.
“Luke…” her mother reached out, and he sat beside her. Together, they cradled her between them.
“I can already sense that she’s powerful in the force,” he said softly, running his thumb over the back of her hand. “Maybe even more powerful than…”
“With all that whining, it’s no wonder she’s your kid.” Han slipped through the door, followed by a grinning Leia and an unsure, cautious Ben.
“Funny, funny.” Luke tried to give him a pointed look, but he couldn’t keep his smile off his face.
“Look at that,” Leia knelt by her son, gripping his shoulders, “you have a new cousin to help train, to be a great Jedi.” Her voice was hopeful, but nervous. Luke knew exactly why.
Ben’s lips tightened into a not-quite smile.
“Papa!” she wobbled over to him as fast as her little legs could take her. She launched herself into his arms and he held her high into the air as she squealed.
He couldn’t be home enough. He had a new Jedi Order to train. And Ben…was a matter for a different time. For now it was just him, his daughter, and her mother chuckling beside them.
Sometime later, she was fast asleep in his arms, and he could sit like that forever.
Somewhere deep in his soul, he felt like this was not the last time he would get to hold his daughter. He wasn’t sure if it was a Jedi’s intuition or a hopeful father fooling himself.
The girl was badly shaken. She could hardly mumble a word, hardly look straight. He didn’t know what she had seen Ben do, or what–darkness and anger flew at the thought–Ben had done to her. She didn’t seem physically injured, but trauma need not be physical.
“P-Papa…” she rasped, almost questioning. He held her limp body against his chest once more, holding her still tiny hand, and his tears this time fell on her forehead.
“Shh…shh…” he rocked her steadily. She just began to cry, gripping his robes.
“We have to get her out. He’ll come for her,” her mother held her helmet under her arm, reaching for another, smaller one for their child and slipping it over her head. “the little bastard will come for her and I’ll kill him if he gets near her.”
Luke knew he should tell her not to think that way. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to.
“There was always something wrong with that kid,” the woman continued, “I knew it, you knew it, Leia knew it, pretty sure Han knew it too, and now look what happened…” She was rambling, sounding enraged and vengeful but he knew that what she was really feeling was fear. She scooped her daughter’s skinny body in her arm, cooing and fighting her own tears.
“Just get her to the temple. I’ll meet you there.” He stood, and she nodded. They stared at each other for a few minutes, eyes wet and breaths shaky.
“Promise me you’ll be there soon. Please.”
“I promise.” He kissed her, good hand on her cheek, and before he knew it she was racing to her ship.
The ship was shot down just past Jakku. No survivors were found.
A foolish father after all.
Her head was pressed to his chest, and her arms trembled even as she wrapped them around his back, gripping for dear life.
He held her as she wept, and he could feel her emotions twisting through the air. Confusion, shock, amazement, relief, fear…
They stood like that for what seemed like ages, at the top of the cliffs of Ahch-To. The sunset was just dipping below the horizon, and orange light still set the sky ablaze. He’d taken her here just for this occasion. He’d needed the right spot, the right time, the right silence…
“This can’t be true…” she said just over a breath, “this is impossible…”
“I felt it as you came over the cliff for the first time.” He stroked her back. She looked so much like her mother, and part of him lamented the time lost. A larger part rejoiced that he even had this much. “I knew it would be hard for you. I didn’t even think you…”
“I know.” She detached herself from his arms and rested her forehead on his chest. “…I think I felt it too.” Her emotions flared and twisted once more, but this time he could sense another, understated but omnipresent: love. And it was like holding her for the first time.
She had stared at him wide-eyed when he’d told her, shaking her head but furrowing her brow as if something had finally made sense.
“You’re father is not gone, Rey…no, I am your father.”