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It surprised her how easily she slipped into the role of “daughter.”
Perhaps it’s because it’s what she’d been craving her entire life. She’d prepared herself throughout her lonely childhood. Rested her head against walls, imagining it was someone’s shoulder. Hugged her packs when she slept, like it was a warm body. Sometimes talked to an imaginary family when she ate.
Of course, there was a period of nervousness after he told her, nearly immediately after they parted, dried their tears, and returned to their life. There were long pauses in his hut when they would glance back and forth from each other across the room, quickly turning away when they saw the other look. Times when she still resented him for those years in which she was left alone on Jakku, but didn’t dare ask him why they happened. Other times, when she remembered those dragging days of loneliness, she just wanted to hug him again. She didn’t do that either.
What if she did the wrong thing? What if he was offended by her anger? What would he do? What if he didn’t like that she was grown, what if he had reason to never come for her, what if it was her fault, what if he’d leave her again…
The last thought was a near constant whisper in the back of her mind. Nonsense, she told herself. But it wouldn’t leave.
He trained her like he would any other Jedi. He taught her meditation, sent her racing up and down the steps of the temple, smiled when she did right and never really scolding her when she did wrong, but simply telling her to go again, to remember that Jedi do not try but do. He never called her his daughter. She didn’t see his teary smile for weeks. He said nothing of her mother. She called him “Master Skywalker,” as she had before he told her. She didn’t know what else to call him. Sometimes it was still a little amazing that he even existed.
At night they ate, discussing the ways of the Jedi but never their life.
Rainy days were the worst, when they couldn’t train outside as long. They had to spend more time in the shelter of the hut, studying the Force with words. The more words exchanged between them, the more words were ignored as they tried to ignore certain topics.
It was stifling. Perhaps he’d been trying to accommodate her, lest she be more shaken by her newfound relationship than she let on. Let her come to him on her own time. But she knew she never would, because you don’t scavenge for food for fifteen years and readily believe in things like unconditional love or trust. They were myths on Jakku. People were like sand; the harder you gripped, the faster they were to fall away, oftentimes flying in the wind and burning your eyes for your trouble. As far as she knew, she could blow on this tower and it would come crashing down on top of her.
But she thought he was a myth once, too.
She would put away her bowl, thank him, and go to her corner to sleep. She could hear him poking the fire restlessly and sigh. She thought of sitting next to him. She didn’t.
One night, Rey heard him whisper a name. “I’m so sorry…” he said in a breathy mumble. She gripped her blanket tighter.
Please Papa, she suddenly thought, and flinched in surprise. She had no idea where that name came from. Like forgotten dreams, she felt a rush of faded emotions…fear, desperation, sadness.
And in another moment it was gone. Rey shuddered and turned away from the fire.
When Luke stood, she could hear him start towards his own sleeping area, but then his footsteps paused just adjacent to her. She held her breath.
He him simply sighed again, and moved past her. Her heart sunk, and she willed herself to drift off to sleep. And so it went, for several nights. Somehow, she felt emptier then than before she knew.
Finally, one day, everything changed.
She stood on a thin tower of rocks, balancing precariously between two small islands of the planet. Water rushed white over the sharp rocks below her, and the tower swung violently in the breeze with harsh cracks that stung her ears.
“This is insane!” she snapped at her master, who was sitting calmly on one of the islands. He shook his head slowly.
“Your instincts in the Force are excellent,” he said simply, “you’re very apt at calling to it when your life is in danger. Still, I’ve come to find that you tend to depend on brute force, so to speak, in those situations. In this exercise, I will let go of my own control of the tower, and you must focus despite your fear in order to keep it upright. You need to practice very precise control of the Force under pressure.”
“Or I could just use the rock to float over to your side!” she shouted with a huff.
“You could,” Luke shrugged, “and you’d win a point for critical thinking. But you would not improve this particular skill, which could be useful in the future.”
Rey gritted her teeth. His tests could be grueling, but they weren’t usually life threatening. She could very well…
He’s my father, she thought, he wouldn’t let me die. But old habits of distrust die hard, and all she could think of was falling to her doom on the rocks below. And what kind of father makes you do tests like these anyway?
“If you keep thinking of death, you won’t be able to focus,” he called to her. A father who is also your Jedi Master, Rey thought bitterly. She had a few choice words and gestures she wanted to share with him, but she refrained with a growl. Instead, she breathed out, shuffled her feet wider on the rock, and closed her eyes, ignoring the rush of the wind and water or the rapid pace of her heart and whirring of her mind. Just focusing on the rocks below her, feeling the force move around them, shifting them when one got out of place…
Good work, she heard Luke’s voice call to her mind. She clenched her jaw and worked on the rocks…push…pull…move with the rush of the water…it was easier than she thought! The tower didn’t even shake as she manipulated it, and she stood up straight with confidence as her anxiety nearly died.
Until a wave came.
It splashed hard against the tower, and she could feel the impact in her bones. With a gasp and yelp, her body tiltered off balance. She just barely kept the rocks from flying out of place, but they would not stay for long. The tower shook and swayed and she hopelessly tried to knock its parts back into place, but she could feel them start to fall.
She flung her head up desperately at her master.
“HELP, PAPA!”
Before she knew it, the rock she was standing on was floating slowly and safely to the cliff where Luke Skywalker stood, wide eyed and quiet. The rock tower collapsed, sending stones crashing into the rushing water.
She stepped gingerly to the hard ground, trying to calm her trembling legs and ragged breaths. “That almost killed me!” she rasped. Anger consumed her as her heartbeat started to slow. She could slap that man–
“I wouldn’t have let you fall, sweetheart,” Luke said gently, giving a soft smile and running his hand over her sweaty forehead.
It was like her anger was washed away with the waves behind her. She couldn’t explain it, but she guessed it had something to do with that last word. “What?”
“I wouldn’t have–”
“I heard you.” She looked away, trying to ignore how his blue eyes brimmed with tears. “I still didn’t like it.”
“I’m sorry.”
She stared at her feet. “It’s okay…Papa.” No use in ignoring what had just happened. No use in avoiding the sentiment any longer. She was tired of it, she realized.
Rey looked back at his face. That was her father. She wanted to call him as such.
He nodded, and moved his hand down to her shoulder. “Then why don’t we check in for tonight? It’s been a stressful day.”
“Yes, it has.”
That night they ate, and she found herself sitting by his side instead of across from him. They still didn’t speak much of their pasts, but for the time being it didn’t seem to matter.
Rey called him Papa again when she asked him to pass the meat.
Luke called her sweetheart or honey whenever he had the chance.
It was embarrassing every time, even though they were the only two there. She was raised of rough sand and harsh words, not sentiment. But, then again, apparently so was he, from what little she knew.
He saw her roll her eyes when he called her “honey” and chuckled, patting her on the back. “Just think of how embarrassing I’d have been with you growing up, my girl.”
She was quiet for a moment. The joke masked how much both of them mourned the loss of such an experience, but she decided not to address it. Still, there was also the fact that she wasn’t sure if it was him embarrassing her, or that she wasn’t sure she knew how to be someone’s girl. But she shoved that thought away, and smirked at him.
“I’d have given you hell for it, Papa.” For rest of the meal, Rey found herself tailing or beginning nearly every sentence with that word. She knew she did it for the same reason he kept saying his sweet names for her; she’d been deprived her whole life, and it just felt so good.
After that, things definitely changed, and she was definitely his daughter.
Training resumed as usual, but different. Luke’s usual praise was laced with his pet names that she returned with exaggerated scoffs to hide her smiles. He touched her more liberally, putting hand on her shoulder or the back of her head for comfort and encouragement. It was odd. Odd but good.
Finally, she worked up the courage to join him next to the warm glow where he sat every night.
They still didn’t speak much. But she was his daughter, it was only right. Sometimes he would wrap his arm over her shoulders, and she couldn’t explain the feeling of security and warmth that spread through her when he did. She began to lean against his own shoulder, just like she’d practiced as a child. It felt much nicer than a wall. Still, when she went to bed at night, she could swear she sometimes dreamed of the silhouette of a woman or the rapid blasts of lasers. She didn’t know why, so she ignored it.
To her surprise, she came to love it when she awoke to the pitter patter of rain on the roof. It meant that they spent hours indoors meditating…or, rather, hespent hours trying to meditate, while she always broke out into giggles as he sent her disapproving looks. Her favorite moments were when he would give in, occasionally whispering terrible punny jokes that she pretended didn’t amuse her.
Everything was calm. They never addressed certain topics, even as they hung behind them like a ghost. That is, until she slipped while walking their bowls to the hearth, and her pant leg got caught on a piece of wood. It ripped up the side to reveal a deep gashing scar.
Luke hurried to help her collect the dishes, but stopped short when he saw the mark.
“You didn’t get that while training, did you honey?” He asked with concern.
“No no.” Rey began to dish her dinner from the pot boiling over the fire, sighing at the broken threads on her pants but knowing how to fix them. “I got it on Jakku when I was…twelve, maybe? Fighting over some stupid locals for some more valuable scraps. One pulled out a piece of sharpened metal and cut into my leg. Learned how to treat infections that week.” She laughed darkly, shrugged, and began to shovel food into her mouth.
Luke just stood and watched her.
Rey paused self-consciously. “What, Papa?”
He looked away from her gaze, before slowly sitting down. He started to scoop his own dinner, but it seemed to be more to preoccupy himself than anything.
“When you were little…”he mused, stirring his bowl slowly, “really little, about three, you fell and gashed your knee. I ran over to you and started to tend to it. Your mother was a tough one, and she thought my making it a big deal meant you would make it a bigger deal…she was right, I guess, you didn’t even start crying until I ran over.” He chucked breathily, almost like he was trying to hold back his own tears. “I bandaged it up as fast as I could. I couldn’t bear to see you hurt like that. You thanked me and hugged me and ran off as soon as I finished.”
The flames crackled, and the trees rustled.
“I’m not very hungry. Here…” He scraped the remains of his food, which was most of it, into her almost empty bowl. She didn’t complain, but called out to him when he stood and walked outside.
That was the first time he mentioned my mother, Rey realized. She ate alone for the first time in weeks. He isn’t leaving, she reminded herself, he just got emotional, that’s all.
She sat by the fire first that night. He found his way in eventually and sat next to her. She quickly leaned her head on his shoulder. How else were daughters supposed to comfort clearly distraught fathers?
He slowly pulled her into his chest, resting his chin on her head as she wrapped her arms around him. “I’m sorry, my girl,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Rey frowned. Come to think of it, tending to that cut hurt dearly, and she spent several nights crying in pain and wishing there was someone to help her. She also couldn’t scavenge as effectively, so her food rations plummeted, and she struggled to find water to wash the wound every night when her stomach had a hollow ache. Even after it healed, the side of her leg was tender and sensitive and those same boys took advantage of it every time they quarreled.
She didn’t want apologies. She wanted answers.
Rey kept her distance from her father the next days during training. When she fell from her handstand, he shook his head.
“Balance, Padawan. I can tell you aren’t focused.” He then started to say a word of encouragement, but she just grunted and found her stance again. Thankfully, he closed his mouth. At night, they continued with the smalltalk they’d shared before she’d begun calling him Papa, and she went to her cot when he sat by the fire.
Part of her felt guilty for closing him off like that. But she couldn’t go back to ignoring the obvious as they had for weeks now, and she needed to work up her nerve. She knew if they went back to sentiment, she might lose it completely. He didn’t push her, though. Just as always, he let her keep her distance when she wanted to, and tried his best to not let on when it hurt him.
Finally, one night at dinner, she couldn’t hold it in any longer. As Luke reached forward to dish her meal, she finally blurted out what had been hanging on her mind since he revealed himself as her father.
“Why was I left on Jakku? What do you know? Why didn’t you come for me?”
Luke took a deep, shaky breath, and set down his bowl. He ran a hand through his hair and then laced his fingers together. She sat in anticipation, but he only looked to the side, as if trying to gather his words and decide what to say.
“You deserved so much better than this,” he choked out as a tear fell. Suddenly, she wanted to tell him that it was ok, that they didn’t have to discuss this now, that…but she stopped herself. He wasn’t going to leave just because she asked questions that needed answers. She knew that now.
“Where should I start?” he asked with a gentle, assuring smile.
Rey thought for a moment. There were so many questions, she didn’t really know what she wanted to know first. So she went to the beginning, the most basic answer to where she came from.
“Who was my mother?”
Luke grinned, as if he’d expected just that. “Well, let us begin.”