Finn used to be a Stormtrooper, and Stormtroopers have many rules.

There are rules about weapons and fraternization and when to kill and when to maim. There are rules about orders and Orders. There are rules about who to never disobey. There are enough rules to fill up the cargo hold of every base in the Outer Rims, enough rules to drown in.

But one of the rules that he has grown to disregard since leaving the First Order is this: never trust your instincts. He can still hear Captain Phasma telling him and the other Young Cadets that the only orders a good Stormtrooper follows are those of their commanding officer. In the First Order, she had said, there was no room for improvisation or deviation from the norm.

It had been hard to accept that he was breaking a rule he had diligently followed for twenty-three rotations. Then again, if he hadn't decided to trust his instincts and disregard his orders, he never would have defected from the First Order. He never would have joined the Resistance and become friends with Black Squadron, nor would he have discovered his Force-sensitivity. He never would have met and fallen in love with Rey. And he definitely never would have traveled hundreds of miles with Rey to deliver the lightsaber from Maz's castle back to its rightful owner.

If that's not deviating from the norm, then he doesn't know what is.

After what seems like an eternity of hesitation, Luke Skywalker reaches out to take the lightsaber from Rey. His metal fingers gingerly trace the handle, his expression inscrutable save for the conflicted amazement still shining through. Then he looks up to face both of them again. "Where did you get this?"

Finn exchanges a nervous glance with Rey. "Takodana," he says. "Maz Kanata had it. For safekeeping."

Skywalker snorts. "Of course she did," he says, almost fondly. His voice is hoarse, like he hasn't had much cause to use it over the last several years. Those strange small birds fluttering all over the island don't exactly seem like stunning conversationalists. "Did Maz send you here?"

It's clear from the way he says it that he already knows the answer, but Rey shakes her head anyway. "The Resistance sent us," she says. "Your sister did. Leia."

Skywalker's grip tightens imperceptibly on the lightsaber's handle at the mention of his sister's name. "Why did the Resistance send you? Where are you from?"

Finn opens his mouth and closes it, embarrassed that he doesn't have a proper answer. He had grown up on a First Order base in the Outer Rims, spent several days on Jakku, and lived with the Resistance on D'Qar, but as to where he's from, where he had been born...he has no idea. A sidelong glance at Rey shows that she's also struggling with the question, and when she speaks it appears to be for both of them: "Nowhere."

"No one's from nowhere."

"I'm from Jakku."

"I'm from Tatooine. That's nowhere." The corners of Skywalker's mouth quirk upward. For a brief instant Finn sees the man Skywalker used to be—the young, confident hero of the Rebellion—but then the moment (and the smile) fades. "Why are you here?"

That takes him slightly aback. Hadn't Skywalker heard Rey's earlier explanation? "We're here because the Resistance sent us," Finn repeats. "The First Order's growing in strength and we can't defeat them without you."

He'd thought that had been a sufficient explanation, but Skywalker shakes his head. "Had that been the only reason, the Resistance would have sent a droid to find me. So I ask again, why are you here?"

Rey's hand brushes his and clutches it like a lifeline—he can tell that she is just as rattled as he is that Skywalker had taken one look at them and gotten straight to the heart of the matter, but she hides it better. Her eyes flicker to the edge of the island, where the distant waves crash against the shore, and she straightens imperceptibly like she's bracing herself. "Something inside me—inside us—has always been there. And now it's awake. We don't know what it is, or what to do with it. And we need your help."

Her words echo in the clearing, bouncing off the stones around them. Finn's eyes shift between Rey, whose expression is stubbornly hopeful, and Skywalker, who has gone completely still. But instead of giving them a reply or a gesture of acknowledgement, Skywalker just turns on his heel and walks off.

"Wait!" The word escapes before he can stop it, or even think of another one. He takes a step forward, and then another one, his incredulity giving way to anger. He and Rey hadn't traveled hundreds of miles on General Organa's orders just to be ignored when they ask for help. "Don't just—you can't just walk away without giving us an answer!"

Skywalker walks toward a path that meanders down the side of the island, tossing one last comment over his shoulder before he disappears. "Isn't this answer enough?"

Maybe so, Finn thinks, but it's not an answer that I'm going to accept. Nor is it an answer that Rey has accepted: she is holding her staff in a white-knuckled grip and her jaw is clenched tight enough to grind her teeth to dust. "I can't believe this."

"I know. You'd have thought General Organa would have warned us that her brother is just as stubborn as she is." Finn's pleased that he manages to elicit a laugh from Rey even through her anger. He sits down on a nearby rock, propping his chin on his hands. "What should we do?"

"We need him to hear us out," Rey says. "And we can't do that by force—he'd overpower both of us in seconds."

Finn doesn't doubt that for an instant. Even if he and Rey had both held their own against Kylo Ren, Skywalker could probably still beat them with one hand tied behind his back. "Then I guess there's nothing to do but go after him," he says decisively.

Rey offers her hand to him, and he gratefully takes it, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet before the two of them take off after Skywalker.

The mud mixed in with the rocks and the overgrown grass makes the path that Skywalker had taken difficult to navigate. Finn has to grab Rey's shoulder several times in order to keep his balance. By the time the path evens out and comes to a stop in another clearing, he is breathing heavily and his muscles ache from fatigue.

It's much foggier down here; less green and more gray, harder to see. Uneven chunks of mountain are just visible in the distance, and if he concentrates he can still hear the ocean waves splashing against the rocks near the shore. There's something else several feet away, something that he can't quite make out through the mist. "Can you see that?" he asks Rey. "That weird structure up ahead?"

Rey's eyes narrow. "A little. We ought to get a closer look."

The weird structure up ahead turns out to be a tree, but it's the largest tree he's ever seen. It's almost as big as the conventional junction station back on Starkiller Base. The trunk is warped with age and dotted with green and graying moss, and the branches spiraling from the trunk are bare. There's a doorway-shaped hole in the side, and his hand slides to the blaster holstered at his hip as he and Rey enter.

Leaves and dirt crunch under his feet as he slowly walks to the center of this strange dwelling. A shelf-like structure sits against the wall, and a stack of books are illuminated by a thin beam of sunlight wafting through the branches. Finn steps forward to take a closer look at them—just a look, as he's afraid they'll fall apart if he touches them. The titles are in a language he doesn't understand, so he turns to Rey to ask if she can decipher the symbols but his question comes to an abrupt halt. "You okay?"

"I…" She seems on edge, almost jumpy in a way that she has never been in all the time that Finn has known her. For some reason this place is really freaking her out. "I know it sounds strange, but I could've sworn that...that I've been here before. For some reason this place is familiar."

Thrown for a loop, Finn stares. He has no idea how that's possible as Rey had never left Jakku until they'd gone on the run from the First Order, but she sounds so sure that he believes her anyway. "Maybe you saw it in a dream or something," he offers, remembering the strange visions he'd had of Pava and Kylo Ren after he'd crash-landed on Jakku. "What is this place, anyway?"

"It was built a thousand generations ago." Rey startles and Finn turns around so quickly that he nearly gets whiplash. Sure enough, Luke Skywalker is standing in the entrance of the small room, the lightsaber still in his hand. "To keep these." He nods at the stack of books on the shelf. "The original Jedi texts. Just like me, they're the last of the Jedi religion." He steps forward, his brow furrowing as he looks closer at Rey. "You've seen this place. You've seen this island."

Rey's voice is so soft that it is almost lost in the whistling of the wind outside. "Only in my dreams."

Her answer seems to perturb Skywalker even further, and he frowns at them. "Who are you?"

As Rey is too lost in her thoughts to speak, the duty falls to Finn. "I'm Finn," he says. It's been weeks since he'd chosen that name and yet he still feels an odd little thrill every time he says Finn instead of FN-2187. "And she's Rey." At the sound of Rey's name, Skywalker stiffens like someone has just raised a hand to him. Come to think of it, the action reminds Finn of Solo's reaction when Rey introduced herself on the Millennium Falcon, but he chooses not to dwell on that now. "Master Skywalker, we came here because we need your help. We need someone to show us our place in all this."

Skywalker's shoulders slump, and his defeated expression makes him look about twenty years older. "You need a teacher," he says. "I know. But I can't teach you. I'm sorry."

"What?" Refusing to do it is one thing, but if it's a question of actually being unable to do it… "Why not?"

This is, apparently, the wrong thing to ask. One second Skywalker is across the room and the next second they're face to face. Rey immediately moves to Finn's side, her staff half-raised defensively, and Finn's hand only leaves his holstered blaster once Skywalker takes a step back. "Why not?" He sounds exhausted, like he's given up on everything. "Because I couldn't save my students from being slaughtered by the Knights of Ren. I couldn't prevent my nephew from turning to the Dark Side, and I couldn't stop Snoke and the First Order from gaining so much power in the first place." He squeezes his eyes shut, taking a moment to collect himself before opening them again. "I will never train another generation of Jedi. I came to this island to die." He reaches out and gives the lightsaber back to Rey before turning his back to them. "Take it from me, kid. It's time for the Jedi to end."

Skywalker is almost to the entrance of the dwelling when Rey breaks the silence. "No."

"What?"

"No." She shakes her head, clearly still determined to make Skywalker see sense. Finn admires that, as he's fresh out of ideas of what to say to convince Skywalker to help him. "I understand wanting to hide from a world that's caused you so much pain, and not wanting to move forward, but we came here for your help. The galaxy still needs the Jedi, the Light—it needs Luke Skywalker."

"Kylo Ren and the First Order will slaughter millions of innocent people if you just sit by and do nothing," Finn adds, his stomach twisting at the mere thought of the weapons that the First Order has at their disposal. "It'll make the destruction of the Hosnian System look like—"

"The Hosnian System?" Skywalker whirls around, his voice and eyes sharp. "What happened to the Hosnian System?"

For the second time in less than five minutes, Finn is thoroughly thrown for a loop. He exchanges an uneasy glance with Rey, who looks like she isn't sure if Skywalker is messing with them or not. Only one way to find out, I guess. "It...it was destroyed. By Starkiller Base. Like what the Empire did to Alderaan, but on a much larger scale." He searches Skywalker's face for any hint of recognition, only finding horror and dismay. "You...you didn't sense that? Through the Force?"

Skywalker does not reply.

"You disconnected yourself from the Force, didn't you." It's not a question, it's a statement. Skywalker doesn't deny it. "I heard stories about that growing up, but I didn't know…" Rey doesn't finish her sentence, but Finn hears its conclusion all the same: I didn't know if it was true or not. "Why did you do that?"

"The pain of losing so many people I cared about…it was too hard to bear." Finn remembers Solo's story about how Luke had lost his wife and child and feels a pang of guilt and sadness. He may understand why Skywalker had turned away from the Force and exiled himself on Ahch-To, but he doesn't agree. After all, he hadn't given into despair when Rey had been kidnapped by Kylo Ren…

Rey seems to be thinking along the same lines. "Well, we both lost someone we cared about and we didn't turn away from the Force," she says bitterly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I'm sorry," Skywalker says, quiet but genuine. "I…who did you lose?"

Finn opens his mouth and closes it. He doesn't want to be the bearer of bad news, but if Skywalker hadn't known about the destruction of the Hosnian System, then he must have missed another event as well. "Our friend," he finally says, his grief threatening to choke him. "Your friend. Han Solo."

After listening to Finn and Rey's explanation of everything that had happened in the last few weeks, Luke is grateful that they allow him a moment to collect himself. He hadn't been able to stand the pity in their eyes when they told him about the Resistance's ongoing battle against the First Order, or how many people had been killed as a result of the destruction of the Hosnian System. Or how Han had died.

Luke sinks into the booth that encases the dejarik table, smiling faintly as he recalls Threepio playing against Chewie at this very table on their way to Alderaan, how Han had smirked around his comment that Wookiees tended to rip out people's arms when they lost. How, many months later, Leia had trounced Han so thoroughly at dejarik that his stupefied reaction had nearly made Luke cry from laughter.

So much has changed since then. They're all older, greyer, more jaded. Leia is alone on D'Qar, somehow managing a rebellion deep in battle against the sinister First Order. He has sequestered himself on this island to look for answers that he knows in his soul will never be enough. And Han is dead, killed by the son that he had loved more than anything in the galaxy. By the son that Luke had failed to help.

And now these two—a former Stormtrooper and a former scavenger—have come to him on Leia's orders for help that he can no longer give. He hadn't regretted turning away from the Force all those years ago, but now his guilt threatens to choke him. They want him to train them in the ways of the Force so they can take down Ben (no, not Ben anymore, Kylo Ren) once and for all, but he can't. He can't.

Don't lie to me, Luke, he imagines Mara saying. The desire to be out there saving the galaxy is so thick in your blood I can hear it screaming from here.

He lets out a shuddering breath, lowering his head into his hands. Fourteen years since her death and he still misses his wife so much that it feels like a constant ache under his ribs. And his beloved daughter, who he can still picture so clearly in his mind's eye. Her brown hair and toothy smile. The fuss she'd kick up when she couldn't have sweets before dinner. The way she would come running to him on his trips back from the Jedi school, shrieking with joy as he twirled her around while Mara laughed…

The girl from Jakku shares his daughter's name. That had been a surprise.

He can tell that Finn and Rey are both strong in the Force, stronger than he has seen since—well, since Kylo Ren. But it's clear that these two are nothing like his wayward nephew. Besides, if Ben Kenobi hadn't agreed to train me, I never would have left Tatooine, or met Han and Leia. I never would have found out about my family, or helped blow up the Death Star. The Empire would have won.

If I don't help them, who knows what will happen to the galaxy?

Night falls not long after they leave Skywalker to his thoughts in the Millennium Falcon, bringing with it a biting cold wind (making her grateful for the shawl Leia had packed for her) and thousands of droplets of water pouring from the sky. Rain.

She's never seen rain before. Jakku's storms had only kicked up sand and dust and grit and a shrieking wind that had made her stuff her ears with cotton to block out the noise. But this—the smell, the sound, the sight…

"I can't believe this is real," Rey marvels. "Water just…falls from the sky here. And everyone has enough to drink, and there's so much green and everything is growing and…" Her voice catches in her throat. "It's beautiful."

"Yeah." Finn's voice is shaky too. She wonders if this is his first time seeing the rain, or if he's never taken the time to really look at it before. But then he's nudging her on the shoulder, grinning like it's the easiest thing in the world. "Let's go out in it."

That startles an incredulous laugh out of her. "What?"

"Come on, it'll be fun."

He offers his hand to her, and she lets him pull her out into the rain. The raindrops patter against her skin and drip down her face, coinciding with the roar of the ocean waves splashing up against the cliffs, and it's amazing. The mud squishes underneath her feet as she and Finn twirl around and laugh at each other's exaggerated antics, and she feels truly free for the first time since they had danced in her AT-AT.

"Tomorrow at dawn."

Rey turns around so quickly that she nearly trips and takes Finn down with her. Skywalker stands beneath the roof of the Falcon, watching them with a strange look on his face. Strange, yet familiar. "What?"

"I'll teach you the ways of the Jedi," he says. "Everything you need to know. In return, you'll go back to the Resistance without me and help Leia take down the First Order once and for all. We'll start tomorrow at dawn."

Part of her wants to contest his decision to not return to the Resistance with them, but he had agreed to teach them, and that concession is far more than she had expected. Besides, maybe over the course of their lessons she and Finn can convince Skywalker to come back with them anyway. So she nods. "Should we meet you in the clearing?"

"No," he says. "I'll come to you." He pulls his hood up over his head, giving them one last searching look. "Sleep well. I'll see you in the morning."

To my new readers, welcome! To my old readers, welcome back! This fic has been a long time in the making, and I'm very excited to finally be able to share it with you all. Barring any RL complications, updates will be every two weeks.

Stay tuned for Chapter II, in which a First Order officer is captured, Black Squadron is dealt a shocking revelation, and the beginnings of a Stormtrooper rebellion ignite.