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The worst part about being so utterly alone on Ahch-To was how much time Luke had to think.
Ironic, that. One of the reasons he’d gone there to begin with was to have time to think.
The worst times were just at sunset and as he lay down to go to sleep each night. Mornings were easy. Mornings were for meditation, or training, which he kept up rigorously. The rest of the day was often taken up by simple tasks of survival, finding food, cooking it, tending to his equipment. But when evening came, there was little to do but think.
When the sun slipped beneath the ocean that surrounded him, regret settled in beside him like an old friend. In the grand scheme of things, he wasn’t so old, just fifty-three, but some nights it felt like he had enough regret for a man twice his age. Failures, missed opportunities, weaknesses he’d never managed to overcome… it was a slow parade through his thoughts in the evenings and there was no telling what would show up on a given night.
Sometimes it was something small, some embarrassing moment come back to haunt him. Sometimes it was something larger, questioning how he missed a pupil turning to the Dark Side right in front of his eyes.
Tonight it seemed it was going to be a replaying of his greatest missteps on Tatooine, and stars, there were a hell of a lot of them. He’d been hopeless as a kid, completely hopeless. How Obi-Wan had looked at him and seen potential was still beyond him. No one else had seemed to.
Except—that wasn’t quite true, was it?
There’d been one other person on Tatooine who’d seemed to see something special in him, despite his ill-fitting clothes, over-enthusiasm, and often hare-brained ideas.
Luke couldn’t remember a time when Biggs Darklighter wasn’t his best friend. Some of his earliest memories were of Biggs, five years older, patiently explaining something to him, or helping him build a taller tower out of the clay blocks they played with.
As they got older, Biggs was the one who encouraged him to learn to fly, and even taught him how behind Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru’s back when they said no. From then on, there’d been no stopping the two of them, no end to the trouble they’d managed to get into.
Luke still couldn’t say when that friendship turned into him having the worst crush in the history of the galaxy. When he was fifteen and Biggs was twenty, maybe? Somewhere along the way, his hero-worship had turned into something else entirely, and Luke caught himself having all sorts of embarrassing and thrilling thoughts about his best friend.
He would have rather died than let anyone know, so he stayed quiet.
One night, not long before Biggs left Tatooine for the Imperial Academy, they were at a party one of the Darklighters’ friends was throwing. It was huge, easily the biggest party Luke had ever been to, and he was a little intimidated. Biggs stuck right by him most of the night, making jokes and smoothing the way, just as he always did.
There was live music, and an area cleared for dancing—Luke made sure to stay as far away as possible. Aside from a few attempts by Aunt Beru to teach him, dancing was a mystery to him. The music changed to something downtempo, and the lights dimmed as couples filtered onto the floor. Luke hid behind his glass of punch, until Biggs showed up at his elbow.
“Hey kid, you’re not dancing?”
“Are you kidding? A herd of banthas couldn’t drag me out there.”
Biggs’s face fell. “Oh. I thought maybe—you might… wanna dance with me.”
Luke laughed before he could think about it. “Oh, ha ha, Biggs. Funny.” Still, his heart hammered in his chest, imagining a situation where Biggs might have actually meant it.
After a second, Biggs laughed with him. “Hey, I just thought you might need some practice stepping on toes—although I heard from my cousin that you’re already pretty good at that.” He nudged Luke with his elbow, and Luke pushed him back, and after a moment they were laughing and horsing around like nothing had happened.
Now, looking back, Luke couldn’t help but wonder. What if he’d been wrong? What if Biggs had meant it? What if—the rest was too painful to contemplate. Still, here in the quiet darkness of Ahch-To, with only the faint murmur of the waves below and the crackling of his fire to keep him company, Luke could imagine something different.
As he sat by the fire dreaming, a whole different life path spooled out in front of him. He walked through it, step by step like the dance he’d refused: he said yes, they danced. Looking back, he didn’t think Biggs had asked him to dance as a joke. When Biggs left for the academy, they parted as lovers. He could imagine that now without blushing or embarrassment, just a sad twinge of the ever-present regret.
That made their reunion at Tosche Station and then later at the rebel base on Yavin very different. And then… Yavin.
Some events had blended and blurred in Luke’s memory, but he knew exactly how long it had been since the Battle of Yavin: thirty-four years, two months, and six days. And in those thirty-four years, two months, and six days, Luke had imagined, over and over again, all of the ways Biggs might have survived that fight. If Han had been a little quicker. If Wedge hadn’t taken heavy damage. If Luke had just been a better pilot…
Say one of those had been true. Say Biggs had survived. What then?
I wouldn’t be sitting on this Force-forsaken rock right now, I’m sure of that.
Luke could see it, as clear as a Force vision and just as maddening. His role as the Last Jedi would still keep him traveling around the galaxy, but he would have had a home, a real home. Not that Han and Leia hadn’t tried, but they’d had each other, and then later, Ben. But in the world Luke was building in his mind, his home was wherever Biggs was, and no matter how often they separated, they always found home again together.
It was so real, so achingly real, Luke could see the lines that never had a chance to form on Biggs’s face, the graying hair that never had a chance to take root. And he was beautiful.
As he sat beside the fire on the damp ground, Luke lowered his head to his upraised knees. Why was he doing this to himself? That door had closed forever thirty-four years ago (thirty-four years, two months, and six days).
“You always were overdramatic, kid.”
Luke’s head shot up. Clearly, he’d been alone for too long if he was hearing voices.
“You’re hearing voices because I’m standing right here.” Then came that laugh, and there was no mistaking that laugh, the one that said catch up, farmboy. “Turn around, would ya?”
Luke pushed to his feet cautiously and slowly turned around, nerve-endings prickling. He wasn’t sure what he’d see. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to see.
Biggs didn’t have the blue glow he’d come to associate with visits from Ben Kenobi, or even his father (both of which had diminished through the years, finally stopping), but neither did he look entirely substantial. If Luke looked close enough, he could see the glowglobe from his hut flickering through Biggs’s chest. He was still wearing the orange pilot’s jumpsuit he’d been wearing when he died, and looked completely unchanged.
“Not sure how I feel about that beard,” Biggs said, “but you look pretty good. For an old man.” Then he grinned and closed the distance between them before Luke could speak and he found himself caught in the strangest hug he’d ever experienced.
It was like hugging mist—there was something there, some perceptible change in air pressure and humidity against his skin, a flash of warmth followed by a chill. Luke closed his eyes, and the pressure increased, so that when he leaned his head against Biggs’s shoulder, it stayed there, almost real.
Nothing in Luke’s experience prepared him for this, but despite all his years of study, he knew there were mysteries in the universe he would never solve—and he wasn’t going to look too closely at this one.
“I come all this way and you don’t even say hello? What happened, motor-mouth?” And now Luke could feel Biggs laughing, the way his shoulders shook.
“Sorry, you surprised me, I guess.” Luke pulled back and felt an impossible smile tugging at his mouth. “Hi, Biggs.”
“Wait… wait… is there a smile behind all that fur? I can’t quite see it—oh, there it is.”
Luke laughed, and old, old instinct made him shove at Biggs’s shoulder—and again, it connected, and the apparition moved.
“That’s better. You gotta stop moping around, Luke.” Biggs reached out and took Luke’s left hand. “You can’t change the past.”
“I wasn’t moping—”
Ghosts, it turned out, could roll their eyes. “Not moping? ‘Thirty-four years, two months, and six days.’ And you’re wrong, it’s nine days. You lost a couple of days hanging out here in the middle of nowhere.” Then he took Luke’s other hand, the replacement to the one Vader had taken, and gave both arms a shake. “You gotta let it go, kid. You gotta let me go.”
“How?” Luke said helplessly. And then he had to know. “Biggs, were you—did you…”
“Of course I did,” he said, a little impatiently. “Kriff, but you were obtuse. Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter now.”
“Doesn’t matter?” Luke pulled his hands back in a flash of anger. “Everything could have been different, if I’d just… if we’d…”
“But you didn’t. We didn’t.” Biggs shook his head. “Luke, I’ve been following you around for nearly fifty-four years now, and the last thirty-four haven’t exactly been a picnic. For either of us. All this time I’ve been dead, and I still don’t know what dead people are supposed to do—but it’s not this.”
The realization slammed home, what Biggs was saying. “All this time, you’ve been…”
“Right here. Yeah.” Biggs’s expression softened. “I love you, Luke. I have always loved you, but you need to let me go.”
“I don’t know how.” Jedi were supposed to be masters of letting things go, but that was one trick Luke had never quite learned.
“I think I know, now.” Biggs beckoned Luke closer. “Come here, kid.” When Luke got close enough, Biggs slipped a half-substantial arm around his waist, and moved Luke’s hand to his shoulder. “Dance with me.”
“Wh-what?”
“You heard me.” Biggs’s eyes met his and Luke felt eighteen again, insides fluttering wildly. “Dance with me like you should have that night.” He smiled, just faintly. “Get it right this time.”
Maybe it was Luke’s imagination, but he could hear the music. Was it the same music that had played that night? He wasn’t sure, but his gut said that it was. Biggs’s eyes held steady on his face as they started to circle together around the waning fire.
“Why’d you say no?” Biggs asked after a moment.
Luke didn’t want to talk, he wanted to focus on this feeling, as fleeting and strange as it was, this sweetness he’d denied himself before. “I didn’t think you meant it.”
“Bantha poodoo. You knew I was serious.”
As much as he wanted to deny it, Luke couldn’t. On some level, he had. So what was the real reason? It didn’t take long for him to see it. “I was afraid. Afraid of you leaving me behind. Afraid you’d figure out you’d made a mistake.”
“I know.” There was a fleeting touch, like lips brushing against Luke’s temple. “I needed you to say it.” Biggs’s cheek pressed against his, and they didn’t miss a step.
“I’m sorry, Biggs.” The words were too big for Luke’s throat, making it ache as they spilled out. “I love you.”
Biggs’s gave a soft chuckle. “I know that too. I’ve been right here, remember? Shh. Just dance with me.”
Hours might have passed, or it might have been only minutes, but in either case, it wasn’t long enough before the music faded away. Luke didn’t want to let go, so Biggs was the one who leaned back. They clung to each other’s arms and looked at each other.
“There,” Biggs said. “That’s better.”
And… as much as it hurt, it was better. There was a sense of completion, of a circle closing after far too long. But there was still one thing…
Biggs must have felt it too, because they both leaned in at the same time, and there was a sensation of warm and cold against Luke’s mouth as they kissed for the first—for the only—time.
When he leaned back, Biggs was smiling and shaking his head. “That beard. I still don’t know.” The glowglobe from Luke’s hut looked brighter as it shone through him, with less of a shadow. “You won’t forget me, I know you won’t. But now you can move on.”
“So can you,” Luke said past the lump in his throat. I don’t want you to. But that was a selfish thought. Biggs was disappearing right before his eyes, the orange of his jumpsuit the only thing still visible. “I love you, Biggs.”
The apparition faded from view completely, but dimly, he heard, or thought he heard, love you…
There was nothing Luke could do about the tears that wet his cheeks, dampening the beard Biggs had teased him about, nothing except to just let them exist. Despite the grief flooding through him, something had loosened in his chest, like a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. A breath he’d been holding for thirty-four years, two months, and six—no, nine—days.
Luke stood there, looking at the spot where Biggs had been. Words came back to him from deep memory.
“I guess I won't see you.”
“Maybe someday... I'll keep a lookout… So long, Luke.”
“Goodbye,” he said hoarsely to the empty air. Letting go—maybe that was something he could learn to do after all.