Chapter Text
Starkiller Base implodes slowly, almost majestically, allowing Poe’s team time to circle around it and crow victoriously at what they’ve just achieved. Poe stays silent, mind elsewhere, and flies low, dangerously close to the surface of the burning planet, eyes darting around.
BB-8 beeps: [WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?]
“Finn,” Poe says, canvassing the forests, searching desperately for the familiar lights of the Millennium Falcon. He hasn’t gotten word from base that it departed the planet, and the thought that Finn, General Solo, Chewbacca, and the scavenger girl – Rey – might still be there...
A voice crackles through on the comlink: “Black Leader, it’s time to go back.”
“Hold on, Pava,” he replies, distracted by the search. “I’ll give the signal when I’m good and ready.”
Jessika laughs. “I thought we were supposed to use callsigns in the field. But do whatever you need to do. Just so you know, though, General Organa’s waiting for us.”
“Shit,” Poe mutters under his breath, and watches as another section of forest catches on fire. He’s almost looped around the planet an entire time, unwilling to depart without knowing for sure that the Millennium Falcon and its passengers (Finn) are safe.
Poe thinks that having to live with the knowledge that he could have saved them but wasn’t able to might literally kill him.
All of a sudden, BB-8 chirps and whirrs frantically: [TURN YOUR X-WING AROUND AND YOU WILL SEE A SIGHT THAT WILL NO DOUBT BE PLEASING TO YOU.]
Poe obeys, swiveling his X-wing around, and the lights are blinding. He squints past them to see the Millennium Falcon soar up, a tad crookedly, and head out towards space. A relieved grin comes to his face, thankful that the ship is okay, trusting General Solo’s integrity enough to know that he wouldn’t leave the planet without Finn onboard.
“That’s it,” Poe says into the comlink, grin still plastered on his face as he takes his X-wing upwards and prepares to jump into hyperspace. “Our job here is done. Let’s go home.”
“Copy that, Black Leader,” Snap says as the rest of his team joins him, flanking him in a tight formation. There are a few ships notably missing, and later Poe will take a somber moment to remember the fallen, but right now the exhilaration of their success trumps everything else.
When he lands back on D’Qar, it seems like the entire Resistance has poured out to watch them land, some applauding and others talking amongst themselves. Karé and Iolo are right there at the front, running up to his ship when it lands, both beaming too widely for their faces. Poe throws his arms around the two of them as soon as he jumps down from his ladder, pulling them into a group hug that Karé halfheartedly protests against before hugging back even tighter. Iolo pats Poe on the back and Poe can practically feel his grin.
“Great job, man,” Karé says finally, drawing back.
“Yeah,” Iolo says as Poe removes his arms from their shoulders. “Fancy flying.”
“Thanks,” Poe says breathlessly, still giddily grinning. A surge of movement catches his attention: the Falcon has just landed and a crowd has formed, everyone pushing forward to catch a glimpse of the new heroes who saved the galaxy.
Poe pats Iolo on the shoulder, already pushing past him and Karé.
“Good luck, champ,” Karé calls out, laughing, as Poe breaks into a sprint, eager to see Finn and finally meet Rey.
He pushes past the crowd and emerges at the front, searching around for Finn, excited to smile at Finn and see Finn smiling back at him, to throw his arms around Finn in an embrace and to congratulate him with every breath.
But Finn isn’t there.
Poe’s eyes lock on Chewbacca, who has just come running down the ramp, arms full of – something. Or possibly someone.
Someone lying very limply in Chewbacca’s arms as the Wookiee groans and carries them toward a gurney that a group of medics have brought.
Poe stops dead in his tracks and everything seems to come to a standstill. There’s no mistaking that brown jacket, torn in half now. It all comes back again, in a blur: delirious thoughts of Finn screaming for help, screaming for Poe, as his face is swallowed by sand, eyes wide with terror and dismay. Poe, standing nearby, unable to move, unable to help.
“We’ve got a heartbeat,” a medic says, and the world snaps back into motion.
A girl wearing white robes runs down from the Falcon and reaches out to Finn, arm outstretched, but Finn is quickly enveloped by medics and nurses who load him onto their gurney, already beginning to hook him up to machines that will monitor his vitals. She stops, arm falling back to her side, and simply watches as Finn is rolled away.
Poe casts a glance at her face, fresh and young but solemn, and thinks that this must be Rey, the girl Finn risked his life to go back for. She looks lost, forlorn, and Poe thinks that perhaps now is not the ideal time for them to meet. Instead, he turns away and runs to catch up with the medics.
Bryn is there, calibrating a small device that Finn is wired to.
“Bryn,” Poe says to get their attention, brows furrowed in worry and one hand on Finn’s arm as he picks up the pace, keeping as close to Finn as possible. “Is he going to be okay?”
“With luck,” Bryn replies grimly.
Poe looks down at Finn’s face, which is ashen but still beautiful, and at his jacket, which now has a very ugly burn mark going straight through it. Poe swallows, trying not to think about how it got that way and how annoyed Muran would be to see his jacket being mistreated like this. His hand trails down Finn’s arm as they keep moving, finally stopping at Finn’s hand.
When he slides his fingers in the spaces between Finn’s, a spark courses through Poe’s body. Finn’s hand is warm and soft, far too soft for a hand that’s been trained from birth to hold a weapon.
Poe’s hope reignites, just like that, brighter than before.
“Don’t worry,” he says, looking up at Bryn. “I’m a lucky guy. I mean, I met him.”
Bryn snorts a little, but a tiny smile tugs at the corners of their lips regardless.
He follows Finn all the way to the med bay but Bryn blocks the doorway of Finn’s ward, shaking their head resolutely.
“Come on,” Poe wheedles, looking over Bryn’s head at Finn being wheeled towards the intensive care pod. “Please let me in.”
“Dr. Kalonia is working, and it’s not going to make any difference,” Bryn maintains stubbornly. “He’s going to be in there for a while. You’re not going to sit next to his bed that entire time.”
Poe doesn’t reply. Bryn scrunches their nose up.
“Oh, boy,” they say. “You’ve got it bad, haven’t you?”
“What happens to his clothes?” Poe asks, trying to change the subject. Bryn actually laughs out loud at this.
“Poe,” they chide. “He’s unconscious. Now, I know you want to see what he looks like shirtless –”
“Fuck off,” Poe shoots back, faint smile spreading across his face. It fades away very quickly, worry overtaking everything else. “I just – that jacket. It’s kind of important to me. To him.”
Bryn sighs in annoyance. “Okay, hold on. Arkay, barricade the door for me.”
The med droid responsible for this ward, an RK unit, replaces Bryn as the guardian of the doorway as they turn around to go to Finn’s gurney. They come back soon after, holding what appears to be a pile of rags in their hands.
“Here,” they say, dropping it into Poe’s hands. “Now will you leave the boy alone?”
“Sure,” Poe says, staring down at what remains of the jacket. “Thanks, Bryn.”
He turns away and walks slowly, still distracted by the jacket in his arms. The fabric is unmistakably the same, the familiar texture that he’s run his fingers over a million times before for reassurance. The only thing that’s missing is –
It doesn’t smell like Muran anymore. Gone is the lingering smell of mint and motor oil that has endured, against all odds, through several weeks. Gone is the last physical trace of Muran that existed past his death.
The jacket smells like burning, red-hot, searing pain. Poe knows it: it’s the smell that arose when Kylo Ren swung the lightsaber at Lor San Tekka. It’s the smell of a lightsaber slicing through flesh.
He swallows thickly as he thinks of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber, tearing ruthlessly through everything and everyone he ever loved.
Poe drops the jacket onto his desk when he gets back to his bunk, almost unable to face it. He’s so tired and this room is so small and so dark.
Poe should feel happy when R2-D2 wakes from his slumber and shows them the rest of the map. Really, he should. This is a monumental step and he should feel happy. Everyone else does.
As it is, though, Poe has found he’s excellent at projecting joy when the situation calls for it: a smile comes to his face as cheers fill the room and he hugs the person nearest him, stubbornly telling himself that yes, this is happiness, the Resistance is finally one step ahead of the First Order, everything is as it should be.
He draws back quickly, realizing that he doesn’t know who he’s hugging, and gazes upon the face of the girl who reached out for Finn earlier that day – at her young, winsome eyes, and the sharp angles of her face. They stand, facing each other in a moment of awkward silence, before Poe realizes that he should probably make an introduction.
“Uh, hi,” he says, although it’s really more of a mumble. He’s never felt more inadequate in his life. Something about the quiet gravitas of her gaze disarms him. “I’m Poe.”
A spark of recognition: she nods slowly, eyes searching his face with a quiet solemnity. “I recognize the name. So you’re Poe. Poe Dameron, the X-wing pilot. I’m Rey.”
“I know,” Poe replies, and relaxes, managing to smile. He wonders if Finn’s told her about him – if Finn talks about him as ‘Poe Dameron, the X-wing pilot’. Not a bad title. “Nice to meet you.”
She smiles back at him, a little tentatively, and Poe is soon distracted by Karé and Iolo singing a loud, hearty duet to celebrate the occasion. Rey turns around, surprised, then turns back to Poe, looking confused. Poe shakes his head and smiles, heart still aching but a little less, now, at the image of his two best friends in the world engaged in a moment of such pure joy.
“They seem odd,” Rey says, very frankly, and Poe laughs.
“They are,” Poe says. “But, well. They’re captains and I trust them, so they get to be included in some of the top-secret briefings. I have a feeling they’d ask to hear every detail from me even if they weren’t.”
“And you?”
“What?”
“What are you?”
“Oh,” Poe says, and gestures at his badge. “I’m a commander. This is the symbol for ‘Commander’.”
Rey nods slowly, absorbing the information. “Why are some badges red and others blue?”
“Blue badges are for people in the navy, like Admiral Statura over there, and I’m army personnel,” Poe replies, answers coming to him instantly: this is a world he’s lived and breathed for over ten years. “Hey, look, I’ll teach you all about this stuff someday, if you want.”
Rey smiles. “I’d like that.”
Then General Organa is there, a gentle hand on Rey’s shoulder. “Rey,” she says. “I need to talk to you about something.”
Rey nods, then looks at Poe. “Why doesn’t she have a badge?”
“She doesn’t need one,” Poe responds readily, winking at the General. “Everyone knows who she is.”
“Damn right,” says General Organa.
Despite the electrifying atmosphere of the room, Poe’s smile dies quickly, mind still occupied by thoughts of Finn, motionless in an intensive care pod. Iolo makes his way over to Poe and puts an arm around his shoulders.
“Cheer up, Commander,” he says joyfully, eyes gleaming pink. “Hey, come to the mess hall tonight. We’re going to celebrate.”
“I’ll be there,” Poe says, even if the sound of a massive celebration doesn’t much appeal to him. Iolo clearly hears something in Poe’s tone: he stalls and his eyes narrow, searching Poe’s face curiously. He’s always been better at reading Poe than anyone gives him credit for. Even if Iolo constantly denies it, Poe genuinely suspects that being Keshian gives you a better eye for people’s inner feelings, too.
“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” Iolo says finally. “You’ve had a stressful day.”
“No, no, I want to go,” Poe insists. It seems wrong of him not to go, after all: the Resistance has just scored a massive victory over the First Order, and he was an integral part of that. Objectively speaking, that is cause for celebration.
Iolo doesn’t seem convinced, patting Poe on the shoulder before drawing back. “Okay. See you there.”
Poe returns to his bunk soon after Iolo leaves him alone to do a ridiculously complicated handshake with Admiral Ackbar that makes everyone laugh. He shrugs off his flight suit and finds that someone has returned the clothes he was wearing several days ago on Jakku, now washed and ironed.
He puts them on simply because they’re there and remembers when they were stained with sweat and tears and sand, until there was no more moisture and no more hope left in him. Losing Finn on Jakku almost killed him, and the mere thought of losing Finn a second time is something he’s not even going to consider.
Poe goes to the mess hall that evening, trying to pretend that it’s been a normal day, that he hasn’t just helped to save the Resistance from destruction and that the man he owes his life to isn’t lying unconscious in an intensive care pod. He’s immediately greeted with raucous noise when he enters. Usually he sits with one of his squadrons or with Karé and Iolo but today, eight tables have been haphazardly pushed together to make room for everyone to sit together.
“Hey, guys,” he says, smiling widely despite feeling a little bit hollow. Fake smiles come as naturally to him as breathing nowadays. The tables are packed, everyone sitting shoulder to shoulder, when he approaches. “How about that mission, huh?”
“Amazing!” Karé shouts, raising her glass. “Best pilot in the Resistance, people! Raise a glass!”
A loud cheer sounds as everyone raises their glass to Poe, laughing and talking. Poe would normally revel in this atmosphere, would be in the center of it all, telling a daring and only slightly exaggerated story about how he felt up in the air, but tonight his mind is far away from here.
Jessika throws an arm around Karé’s shoulders, grinning at her. “Don’t forget the rest of us, Captain Kun.”
“I could never,” Karé replies, smiling back. “A toast to the Red and Blue squadrons for helping!”
“And to the ones who didn’t make it out,” Snap shouts. “We’re gonna do ‘em proud!”
Defiant shouts of assent fill the air as everyone toasts the fallen. Poe finds himself squeezed into a small gap that appears when Iolo forces people to make room for ‘everyone’s favorite poster boy’. Officer Tabala Zo is sitting next to him, furiously typing something on a datapad despite being jostled every now and again by the person sitting to her right, drink untouched on the table in front of her. Poe watches her fingers move across the screen rapidly for a moment before speaking.
“You should be celebrating, not working,” Poe says to her, easy smile on his face even if the numb ache in his chest isn’t going away and probably won’t any time soon.
Tabala casts him a sideways glance before returning to her datapad screen. “Statura’s got me running numbers on the info that we got from Starkiller Base before it – you know. Exploded. Nice work on that, by the way. Anyway, super important job. Gotta be prepared for the next time they build a giant superweapon that’ll most likely obliterate us and everything we know.”
Poe is a bit bewildered at the rapidity of her speech as she babbles on anxiously, knee jiggling under the table. Her eyes are wide and laser-focused on her task.
“Hey,” he says, and places a comforting hand on her arm. She stops abruptly and looks over at him, surprised. It’s a quiet moment in an otherwise deafening environment.
“Don’t worry,” Poe says, and he’s trying very hard to smile comfortingly. “We can handle whatever those bastards throw our way. And, hey, if they build another one of those things, I’ll just swoop in and make it explode. I’ve been told I’m very good at that.”
She is visibly reassured as he speaks, iron grip on her datapad relaxing. “Yeah,” Tabala says, voice still lacking conviction but he can see her beginning to accept it. “It’s just – my brother was on Hosnian Prime when they – you know.”
“Oh,” Poe says, heart dropping. “I’m sorry.”
“I hate the thought of other people having to know what that’s like,” Tabala adds hurriedly, ducking her head bashfully. “Losing someone you care about really sucks.”
“Yeah,” Poe replies, and moves his hand so that his arm is around both her shoulders. “You don’t need to tell me. But, hey, cheer up – we kicked their asses today!”
Tabala looks at him, then smiles tentatively. “You’re right. It’s a celebration. We could be dead tomorrow. I mean, I hope we aren’t. But we definitely could be. So this is worth celebrating.”
“Atta girl,” Poe says cheerfully, drawing back from her to reach for a drink. “When you find something beautiful, you hold onto it, even if it doesn’t last long. A toast to your brother.”
“Cheers,” Tabala replies, smile growing brighter. Poe is glad that she’s feeling better, even if he still feels shittier than someone returning from a hugely successful mission has any right to be.
He looks around the table and sees Iolo arguing loudly with Bastian about something or other. Further down: Jessika, leaning on Karé’s shoulder as Karé entertains a crowd of officers with a wild story from the Mirrin Prime days. At the very end: Lieutenant Connix, chugging whisky impressively quickly despite her small frame as Snap and a couple of pilots from Karé and Iolo’s squadrons laugh and cheer her on.
Muran’s favorite drink was whisky.
Great, Poe thinks to himself grimly as he downs the rest of his own drink. Now he’s thinking about Muran and he’s going to be in a foul mood for the rest of the evening. And Finn is lying in the med bay, hovering between life and death. Nothing seems to be going his way recently.
He briefly entertains the thought of being a massive hypocrite and going back to his bunk, but the thought of facing an empty bunk, Muran’s jacket lying in tatters on his desk, is even more unbearable than sitting amongst his peers, who are all high on cheap drinks and the thrill of victory and the ever-present knowledge that this celebration could be their last.
Tabala looks over at him curiously, putting her datapad back into the bag strapped to her hip. “Are you okay?”
Poe purses his lips, staring down at the bottom of his now-empty bottle. He knows what his answer should be.
“No,” he says finally, and the smile that comes to his face is more of a grimace. “Not really.”
“Well,” she replies, sliding another bottle of cheap liquor over to him. “Here’s to more First Order ass-kicking. Tomorrow will be a better day, I promise. I mean, if we die, it won’t be, but if we’re still alive, you’ll be okay.”
“Thanks,” Poe says, still feeling hollow, but his smile softens into something more genuine as she pats him on the back, then leans across the table to arm wrestle Niv Lek.
The next morning, as soon as Poe wakes up, BB-8 rolls off its charging station and beeps: [NEW MESSAGE FROM GENERAL ORGANA.]
“Let’s hear it,” Poe says, sitting up and stretching. His muscles are aching without the adrenaline that comes with running a mission to mask the soreness.
[MESSAGE: I’VE HEARD FROM A CERTAIN NURSE THAT THEY DISCHARGED YOU UNDER WRONGFUL CIRCUMSTANCES.]
“Oh,” Poe says, movements stalling. “Shit.”
BB-8 interrupts its own message to chirp: [WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE, COMMANDER.]
“Sorry, Beebee,” Poe replies obediently, biting back a laugh. “Proceed.”
[I’M TAKING YOU OFF MISSIONS FOR THE NEXT WEEK. YOU ARE TO REPORT TO THE MED BAY FOR A CHECK-UP EVERY MORNING. AND, NO, YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO JUST SNEAK OFF BEHIND MY BACK. END OF MESSAGE.]
“Ugh,” is Poe’s only response. The thought of not being allowed to go on missions for an entire week is torturous, and something he’ll probably contest, but the mention of the med bay reminds him that there’s someone who needs his attention. It’s the least he can do. He wears his military uniform instead of his flight suit, since apparently he’s not going to need that for a little while, and heads directly to the med bay.
Bryn is already guarding the door when Poe arrives at the ward Finn is being kept in, their arms crossed and expression stern.
“I’m not letting you in until you get your check-up,” Bryn says firmly. “I already made an exception for you once.”
“Yeah, and you ratted yourself out pretty quickly,” Poe replies grumpily, trying to catch a glimpse of Finn’s face, which is obscured by the machines around him. “I respect the integrity but hate you for the outcome.”
“Sorry,” Bryn says, smiling. “Here, let’s go to the empty room next door and I’ll do your first check-up. Then we can come back here and I’ll let you sit next to your boyfriend’s pod for as long as you want. Sound good?”
“Fine,” Poe replies absentmindedly, eyes drifting over to Finn, as Bryn takes him by the arm and leads him to the adjacent room.
When the check-up is done and Poe is allowed to go back to Finn’s ward, he walks out to see Rey standing outside, staring at Finn through the window. Her fingers are lightly resting on the glass, eyes focused but simultaneously faraway. She’s wearing something very different to the white robes Poe saw her in last.
“Rey,” he says, walking up next to her. She doesn’t look at him.
“He’s going to be alright,” Rey mumbles, staring at Finn’s unconscious face. “Dr. Kalonia said he would be.”
“She’s usually right about these things,” Poe says. “Don’t worry.”
There’s a lull before Rey says: “I’m going away today.”
Poe looks over at her, surprised. “Where?”
“Luke,” says Rey, very simply, and Poe thinks that this must have been what General Organa wanted to talk to her about yesterday.
“Good luck,” he says. Rey finally tears her gaze away from Finn to smile at Poe, looking very young and very scared but very brave, regardless.
“I’m going to say goodbye to him.”
“Go on,” Poe says gently.
Rey turns and enters the room. Poe watches as she sits by Finn’s bed, looking at him with achingly genuine tenderness in her eyes. Her lips move slowly as she speaks, a farewell to a beloved friend, and leans over as far as she can to kiss Finn’s forehead.
When she comes out she stalls by the doorway, seeming to consider something, before looking at Poe.
“Poe,” she says. “Please keep him safe while I’m gone.”
Poe swallows quietly, and nods.
“I promise,” he says, and means every syllable. “I won’t let anything happen to him. And, hey, when you get back and finish saving the galaxy I’ll teach you anything you want to know. Okay?”
Rey smiles, a tad tearfully. “Okay.”
She casts one final glance back at Finn before turning away and heading out.
Poe stands outside the room and watches Finn sleep for a while. There’s something preventing him from entering the room, something intangible but much harder to pierce through than glass: a terror that, if he lets himself get too close to Finn too quickly, he’ll be ripped away abruptly.
Poe won’t let that happen again. He promised he wouldn’t.
BB-8 finds him twenty minutes later, chirping loudly down the hall: [POE, THE MILLENNIUM FALCON IS GOING TO DEPART SOON AND EVERYONE IS OUT THERE SO I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT WANT TO BE OUT THERE, TOO.]
“I’m coming,” Poe calls back, reluctantly turning away from Finn’s ward.
The Falcon takes off as everyone cheers. It begin its ascent slowly with Rey at the helm, looking like she truly belongs there.
General Organa is very quiet amid the ruckus, silently watching the ship’s blazing lights disappear into the deep blue of the sky.
“What did you want to see me about, General?”
General Organa is sitting behind her desk, watching a holovid of their attack on Starkiller Base to study the First Order’s tactics. She looks up and shuts it off, raising an eyebrow. “You’ve been taken off duty for a week.”
“Yes, sir,” Poe says, saluting.
“Don’t do that,” she says. “It’s funny – three days have passed and not a peep from you. I would have expected you to be fighting tooth and nail to get your week back. Of course, I wouldn’t have yielded, but still.”
Poe shrugs and thinks of Finn, warm and solid, chest rising and falling steadily. “It’s not all bad.”
Poe returns to the med bay after that, as he has for the past few days at any given opportunity. Bryn has taken to putting out a chair next to Finn’s bed specifically reserved for Poe to sit in.
“I don’t understand the point of this,” Bryn says one morning when Poe settles in, datapad in hand. “His recovery isn’t going to speed up with you there.”
“I know,” Poe says, eyes trained on Finn’s face, which is the same as always.
Bryn seems to realize that Poe is a lost cause after a short while and their check-ups grow more and more infrequent. Poe sits by Finn’s bed every day for the rest of the week while BB-8 talks to the med droids and teaches them swear words. He doesn’t talk often, just reads stories he’s been meaning to read for a while but never got the chance to with all that’s been going on. Sometimes he reads aloud passages that he thinks Finn would like and hopes Finn hears them.
Dr. Kalonia comes in every two hours. Each time, without fail, Poe asks what Finn’s status is. And each time, without fail, she fixes him with a piercing stare and says: “Pretty much the same as it was two hours ago, Commander.”
After a few days, she lets him stay in the room overnight but warns him not to tell anyone. She doesn’t threaten him outright, but Poe is intimidated enough by her that he heeds her warning.
The unsavory thoughts come at night, as they so often do, when the darkness closes in and the med bay is silent save for the gentle hum of the machine Finn is hooked up to. Poe glances out the window at the smattering of lights, scattered across the darkness, and thinks of Muran, and beer bottles, and heat.
In moments like these, when he feels especially terrible, he’ll slip his hand under Finn’s to reassure himself. Finn never grips back, never even twitches, but the simple, warm presence of him is enough to make Poe think that things might be okay.
As it turns out, sleeping in a chair isn’t very good for your still-recovering muscles. Bryn gets very angry in the last check-up of the week.
“You are killing yourself,” they say, supremely annoyed. “Look, okay, I’m going to tell General Organa that you can go back to duty, but you’re going to have to go to one of our physical therapists for a while to get this worked out.”
“Bryn,” Poe starts.
“Don’t,” they say viciously, and dig their fingers into a particularly sore spot on Poe’s shoulder. Pain sparks and spreads all down Poe’s arm and back; he recoils violently, biting back a shout.
“That’s what you get for sleeping upright,” Bryn says a tad smugly.
“Okay,” Poe says, gritting his teeth as the pain ebbs away slowly. Far too slowly. “Okay, fine. Point taken. Please don’t do that again.”
Poe returns to duty, but General Organa seems to taken Bryn’s words to heart: most of the missions he’s assigned are either recon or patrol, with very little strenuous activity involved. His squadrons are bored to tears by it.
“Jessika says you guys are getting all the shitty missions and it’s your fault for being too devoted to your comatose boyfriend,” Karé says one evening. She and Iolo are sitting on the floor of her bunk, playing a card game that Iolo invented while day-drunk one morning, while Poe lies on Karé’s bed, muscles beginning to ache.
“Jessika blabs too much,” Poe complains. “And you can tell her that I’m never telling her anything again.”
Karé laughs and lays down another card.
“You’re not playing this right,” Iolo says. “What’s the deal with you and Jessika, anyway?”
“Nobody understands the rules except you,” Karé shoots back, taking back the card. “And there’s no deal.”
“I made the rules perfectly clear in my briefing, so it’s not my fault you have terrible listening skills,” Iolo says, reaching into his pocket to fish out a hand-written manual that he tosses to her. “There’s very clearly a deal. Poe, back me up here.”
“This is doing nothing to help me,” says Karé, brow furrowing as she reads. “And Poe isn’t going to back you up because he’s a smart man who understands that there is no deal.”
“That’s sweet of you to say,” Poe says, smiling at the ceiling. “But I support Iolo’s hypothesis that there is, in fact, a deal.”
Iolo laughs and Karé throws a card at his face.
A few more weeks pass without even a mild disturbance from the First Order. General Organa gets very suspicious and increases the number of patrol missions. Because of their thinly spread resources and the fact that Poe’s two-day stint on Jakku is still affecting his physical performance, Jessika is given temporary control of Blue Squadron, leaving Poe to command just Red. Whenever he’s not doing missions or down in the command center, Poe is back in the med bay, waiting for Finn to wake up.
They’re all in the X-wing hangar one day right after Dagger Squadron returns from a recon mission. Jessika is playing her music very loudly, a warbling tune that makes Poe think of rivers winding through hilly terrain. It makes sense considering where Jessika is from.
Iolo gets out of his X-wing and comes over to Poe as Poe slides out from under his X-wing. He smiles up at Iolo.
“Welcome back, handsome.”
“How was your day of X-wing maintenance?” Iolo asks, taking his helmet off.
“Mundane,” Poe replies, standing up and picking up his toolbox. His sleeves are rolled up to the elbows and his forearms are stained with motor oil. It’s one half of a smell he’d prefer never to think about again.
Iolo stands against Poe’s X-wing, looking over at Karé’s X-wing, which is customized and has a green stripe down the side. His eyes are a cool blue. Jessika is leaning against Karé’s X-wing and sorting through some flight tapes as Karé works, although both of them are far more focused on the conversation than on their work.
“I don’t like those two together,” Iolo remarks.
“Why not?” Poe says, wiping sweat from his forehead. “I think they’re kind of perfect for each other.”
“Yeah,” Iolo says. “But together they’ll be twice as loud.”
Poe laughs, looking through the toolbox for a socket wrench, and is still laughing when the hangar doors burst open and Bryn runs in, wearing their nurse uniform. They’re very out of breath.
“Poe,” they say. “Poe, he’s up.”
The toolbox clatters to the floor immediately and Poe’s vision falters for a second: he takes a stumbling step back, head spinning.
Then he’s off, racing through the X-wing hangar with only one thought in his mind.
Faintly, he hears Iolo shout: “Go get him, tiger!”
Poe sprints out of the hangar and through base with no regard for anyone around him. He’s in the med bay in a matter of minutes, crashing through the door to Finn’s ward, heart in his throat. Poe catches his breath and looks at Finn to see –
Nothing new.
Finn is still lying there, chest rising and falling, but otherwise completely motionless.
Poe moves to his bedside hesitantly, telling himself that he’s literally going to throw Bryn off a cliff if this is some kind of sick joke.
“Finn?” he tries, and hears only silence and the hum of the machine. His mouth is very dry all of a sudden.
The silence lasts only a few seconds but to Poe it stretches on for several eternities as he hopes against all hope that Finn really is awake.
Suddenly, a feeble cough that sends electricity through Poe’s heart. Finn slowly opens his eyes and stares up at Poe, a lazy smile curving languidly across his face, the most radiant thing Poe has ever seen.
“Commander,” he rasps, and for the first time in weeks, Poe doesn’t feel hollow anymore. His heart is so full and so warm, like Finn’s smile has turned his blood into liquid sunlight: his knees grow weak and he falls into the chair by Finn’s bed, beaming widely.
“Buddy,” he whispers, and grabs Finn’s hand, which is warm and alive and twitches slightly under his, like Finn is trying to clutch it back. “Buddy, you’re awake.”
“Yeah,” Finn breathes. “Rey?”
“She’s okay, she’s totally fine,” Poe says, and Finn exhales a sigh of relief. “She left to find Luke Skywalker and she told me to keep you safe while she was gone.”
“Did you?”
“Damn right,” Poe says, and grins. “I always keep my promises.”
Finn tries to laugh but it turns into a coughing fit that makes him grimace in pain as he convulses. Poe’s grip on his hand tightens.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Finn manages once the coughing stops, and his eyes roam over Poe’s face. “How long…?”
“Four weeks,” Poe replies. Finn closes his eyes and groans quietly.
“I’m sorry,” is all he can say. Poe is stunned for a moment, unable to believe that Finn would apologize for this.
“Finn,” Poe says, very seriously, and puts his other hand on Finn’s shoulder. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You saved us all.”
“Wasn’t me,” Finn rasps, but Poe shakes his head, determined to make it known to Finn just how much he’s done for everyone.
“Without you, we’d all be dead,” Poe says, and Finn’s eyes open again. Poe’s gaze is fierce. “We all owe you our lives. Some of us for the second time.”
A small smile comes to Finn’s face as he looks at Poe, and Poe’s heart is so full that he could almost cry. The hand clutched in his moves slowly to squeeze back. Finn isn’t yet capable of more than a weak tightening of his grip but it’s enough to make Poe grin widely in a way that he hasn’t in what seems like forever.
“I’m really glad you’re back,” Poe says, deliriously happy.
“Me too,” Finn whispers.
Finn recovers his strength impressively quickly, at least according to Dr. Kalonia. Poe is reading by Finn’s bed while Finn is napping when she calls him out to talk to him about something.
“He’s recovering very speedily,” she says. “I’ve been to his physical therapy sessions. His progress is quite remarkable.”
“Yeah, he’s a special one,” Poe says. “He’s a trooper. Or more like ex-trooper.”
Dr. Kalonia fixes him with an unimpressed stare before looking back down at her datapad. “He’s going to have to stay here for another week, I’m afraid. Go in there and tell him that, would you?”
“Why me? You’re his doctor.”
“I would,” she says, turning her datapad off. “But he’d probably take it a lot better coming from you.”
“Fair enough,” Poe replies, and goes in. Finn is sitting up in bed when he returns. Poe’s datapad is on his lap.
“Hey, pal,” Poe says, sitting down at the foot of Finn’s bed. “Bad news. You gotta stay here for another week.”
Finn sighs quietly. “I feel so useless sitting here. General Organa says she wants to talk to me after I get out.”
“Trust me, you’re far from useless,” Poe says. “What’re you doing?”
“Is this yours?”
“Yeah.”
Finn is quiet for a moment, dark eyes scanning one particular passage over and over again.
“And she dreamed of endless summer,” he reads aloud, the last line of one of Poe’s favorite paragraphs. He holds the datapad up to show Poe. “There’s a star beside this paragraph.”
“It’s one of my favorites.”
Finn absentmindedly traces his finger over the words, eyes contemplative. “I like it.”
“Really?”
Finn nods, then looks up at Poe. “Can I read this?”
“Go for it,” Poe says, smiling. He’d give Finn just about anything if he asked for it. Finn seems to be wavering between something for a moment before he asks: “Can I read it aloud?”
Poe is surprised for a moment. “Okay.”
“It’s just that I don’t get many visitors, so I don’t have a lot of opportunities to talk,” Finn says. “The only people who come here other than you are Dr. Kalonia and my nurse, who’s kind of scary and always busy.”
“They certainly are,” Poe concurs. “And their name is Bryn, by the way.”
“Oh,” Finn says, and smiles. “Thanks. I was afraid to ask because at some point it just gets too awkward to just – ‘Hey, I know I see you every day, but what’s your name?’”
“I get that,” Poe says with a laugh, and moves over to sit down in his regular chair. “You can only call someone ‘nurse’ for a finite amount of time. And feel free to read aloud as much or as little as you like. It’s just nice to hear your voice.”
Finn looks at Poe for a moment, surprised, then ducks his head bashfully. Poe smiles at him fondly, happy that Finn is happy but beginning to think about how Finn doesn’t get any visitors.
The next day, Poe brings Karé and Iolo along with him on one of his very frequent visits because they’re the only ones who seem excited at the prospect of finally meeting Finn.
“Please don’t embarrass me,” Poe says as they walk through base and towards the med bay.
“You embarrass yourself,” Karé says immediately. “But okay. We won’t contribute to that.”
“I’m excited to meet your new boyfriend,” Iolo says. “Real quick, before we go in there: what’s he like?”
“He’s got the biggest heart,” Poe replies.
“So that’s your type?” Iolo says.
“Yeah, I guess,” Poe says, and a lull falls over the conversation. They’re all thinking the same thing: Muran might have been prickly on the surface but there had never been any doubt that his heart was the purest and truest of all of them.
Then Karé shatters the moment: “Is ‘big heart’ a euphemism?”
“Fuck off,” Poe shoots back as Iolo guffaws. Heat rises to his cheeks, regardless, which Karé definitely notices.
When they get there, Poe knocks on the door of Finn’s ward, hoping Finn isn’t asleep, and opens the door when he hears Finn call out: “Come in.”
He’s sitting up in bed and watching the holovid of the attack on Starkiller Base, which Poe was reluctant to give him but eventually did because he cannot say no to Finn, even if he tries (he can only assume; he’s never tried). Karé and Iolo file in after Poe and it’s the first time he’s ever seen both of them not know what to say.
“Hey, Finn?”
“Yeah?” Finn looks up and his eyes are immediately drawn to Karé and Iolo. His brow furrows slightly in confusion. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Karé says cheerily.
“This is Karé and Iolo,” Poe says, gesturing to each of them when he says their names. “You were saying that you don’t really have many visitors, so I brought you two more.”
“Oh,” Finn says, and begins to smile. He looks at Poe. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome, bud,” Poe says, and something in his tone makes Iolo snort. Finn looks over at Iolo and appraises his eyes, which are shifting in color as they usually do when Iolo is nervous.
“I don’t mean to be, um, insensitive, but what species are you?”
“No problem,” Iolo says, relaxing slightly. “I’m Keshian.”
The conversation begins to flow smoothly from then on. Poe grabs two spare chairs for Karé and Iolo and they sit by Finn’s bed, getting to know him. Poe just sits and watches, not involving himself in the conversation unless specifically invited to. He finds his gaze continually returning to Finn, who is a natural conversationalist and really quite beautiful when he speaks, all easy smiles and quick retorts.
Half an hour later, Karé’s comm beeps and she looks down, scrunching her nose up in annoyance. “Iolo, we gotta go. We’re flying out in twenty minutes.”
Iolo grunts in disappointment and stands up. “Sorry, Finn. We’ll come back some other time, if you’re okay with that.”
“That’d be really nice,” Finn says.
“Later, Commander,” Karé says, saluting Poe, and the two of them leave. Finn watches them go until they’re out of sight, then looks over at Poe with a smile.
“I like ‘em. How long have you all been friends again?”
“Eleven – whew, no, twelve years,” Poe says, and exhales. “That’s a fair while. We were all in a squadron together in the Republic, and then we all joined the Resistance together.”
“Just the three of you?”
Poe’s response hitches in his throat and he finds that he isn’t quite able to look Finn in the eye. “Um, no. We had a fourth member.”
Finn’s brow furrows slightly. “They didn’t join with you?”
“No, um, I’m sure he would have,” Poe says, thinking that Muran would have been the first to volunteer, without question. “He, uh. There was this mission, and the First Order –”
Poe has to take a moment to regather his thoughts, which have suddenly scattered: talking about Muran is still difficult, even without Finn’s gaze trained on him, dark and inquisitive but slowly beginning to put the pieces together. There once was a boy like this, who made the same warmth erupt in Poe’s chest – someone very different but just as good.
“Anyway, he didn’t make it out,” Poe says finally.
“I’m really sorry,” Finn says, and there’s a note of genuine sorrow in his voice, despite never having known Muran – despite not even knowing his name. “What was he like? You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to,” he adds hurriedly.
“No, no, it’s okay,” Poe says, because anything Finn asks is something he’ll want to give an answer to. “He was grumpy pretty much all the time, but if you ever needed anything he’d be there to help you. Like how, um, one time he and Karé got into a fight about – something. It’s really not that important anymore. But that night she found out that her sister was in the med center. And even though they’d had that big fight, he let her into his room and talked to her until she felt better. Stuff like that.”
“He sounds like a very good person,” Finn says.
“He was,” Poe says, and smiles despite himself.
It’s the first time since Muran’s death that he’s ever actually talked about him. They never even had time to hold a funeral. Karé and Iolo were always grieving in their own ways. Any more discussion would have seemed excessive.
He feels like something’s changed all of a sudden. Some kind of catharsis. As if he didn’t already owe Finn enough.
“He’s the one who gave me that jacket,” Poe adds. “Your jacket.”
“Where is it now?” Finn asks curiously, shifting in his bed. “I’ve been meaning to ask that for a while. I liked it.”
“I liked it, too,” Poe says. “But that lightsaber really did a number on it. It’s in my room – or what’s left of it, anyway. I didn’t know what to do with it while you were asleep, but, um – what do you want to do with it? It’s yours.”
Finn is silent, looking down at his lap.
“I think I might just want to have it here,” he says after a long while of contemplation.
“No problem, buddy,” Poe replies. “I’ll bring it to you tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay,” Finn says. “Thanks.”
Poe suddenly finds one of his hands being gripped tightly by Finn’s, reassuring and warm. He looks down in surprise, then up at Finn, who smiles at him so fondly that Poe finds it difficult to breathe all of a sudden.
“No problem,” Poe repeats, and smiles back.
Finn is discharged at the end of the week. Poe is by his side when the machines are finally turned off and Finn gets out of bed, stretching and wincing slightly. The clothes they’ve given him are loaded into a bag that Poe offers to carry, but Finn declines, saying that Poe’s done more than enough for him already.
Bryn reads off their datapad as Finn prepares to leave: “You’re going to have to continue going to physical therapy but other than that you’re mostly fine.”
“Thank you,” Finn says, unable to keep a smile off his face. “For everything you’ve done for me.”
“Not a problem,” Bryn replies, smiling back. “We’ve dropped off some painkillers in your bunk just in case you need any.”
Finn pauses to absorb this information before speaking again: “My bunk?”
Bryn looks over at Poe, arching an eyebrow. “You didn’t tell him?”
“It never came up,” Poe says.
“You are ridiculous,” Bryn says with a shake of the head before turning back to Finn. “You’re bunking with this one here. That okay with you?”
“Yeah,” Finn replies, and looks at Poe, smile radiant. Poe can’t even look directly at him.
“Let’s go,” Poe says, and Finn nods. He brushes past Poe to exit the room first. As Poe leaves, Bryn says: “The walls are thin, Commander, don’t forget that.”
“Shut up,” Poe hisses, and Bryn laughs raucously as the door closes.
As they’re entering the bunk, Poe is still babbling about how it’s a mess because he never has time to clean it up, and that Finn should try to reserve judgment because he swears he’ll tidy it up if Finn wants, and it’ll look much better once some effort has been put into it –
“It’s nice,” Finn interrupts, looking around and drinking everything in. “Like someone would actually live here. Not like that ward in the med bay. You have no idea how boring staring at the same old white walls gets.”
“Well, there are definitely more interesting things to stare at in here,” Poe replies.
Finn smiles at that and his gaze lingers on Poe for half a second longer than it probably should. Poe’s heart leaps and – jeez, is it hot in here or is it just him? Every word in his vocabulary seems to have escaped him as Finn turns and begins to investigate the bunk in more detail.
“Here are the meds,” Finn says, picking up a packet from the desk that contains several bottles. “I don’t think I need them. But I’m going to keep them anyway because technically they’re the only thing I own, aside from clothes.”
“To be fair, it’s not much of a jacket anymore,” Poe suggests.
“Oh,” Finn says, and turns around abruptly. “I meant to tell you.”
“What?”
“Here – look –”
Finn digs around in the clothes bag he was given and takes out a brown flight jacket. Poe just stares, disbelieving. Finn holds it out to him. “Here, feel it.”
Poe takes it tentatively and the fabric is familiar – the way it feels under his fingers is something he never could and never will forget. It doesn’t smell like mint and motor oil anymore, but it doesn’t smell like burning, either. It’s new – something very different than what it used to be, but it feels the same.
“It’s – how did you do that?”
“I asked Bryn to help me get it fixed,” Finn says. “I know it must have meant a lot to you. Because of your friend.”
“Yeah,” Poe says, looking up at Finn. Finn’s expression is so earnest and genuine, like seeing Poe reunited with the jacket really is the only thing he wants, and Poe can’t help but step forward to hug him, jacket still clutched tightly in one hand.
Finn hugs back and Poe buries his face in the crook of Finn’s neck, grinning so widely he feels like his face might split in half. He doesn’t have any words for what he feels right now because Finn is so overflowing with unadulterated goodness. He didn’t even know his heart could be this full, bursting at the seams, but it seems Finn is just full of surprises.
As Poe pulls away he tugs the jacket over Finn’s shoulders.
“I thought you’d want it back,” Finn says, confused, but puts the jacket on anyway.
“Don’t be silly,” Poe says with a small laugh. “It’s yours.”
Finn nods and Poe helps adjust it. When the jacket is on properly and there’s nothing to distract him, Poe realizes abruptly how close they’re standing, that he didn’t move back even a little bit after their hug ended. The hush that falls over them is very loud, matched only by how loudly Poe’s heart seems to be beating. Finn’s eyes are very dark.
The sudden heat brings sudden memories, unwanted and uncontrollable: Poe remembers a sky full of stars over a city full of lights, and a boy who outshone all of that. A glow that illuminates Finn’s face, too, brighter than anything Poe has ever seen.
Finn is right here, glowing, brilliant, nothing and everything like the boy who became stardust. The same dull ache ignites in Poe’s chest, thrumming against his ribs. He gazes at Finn’s beautiful face, still so gentle after years of being immersed in evil. Finn’s lips are slightly curved upwards and they look very soft and oh, God, Poe just wants.
Then he remembers suddenly that theirs is a friendship forged in war and war is never beautiful. Poe simply refuses to be the reason another beautiful thing goes up in flames.
It takes all of his self-control to step away. Finn quietly exhales, releasing a long breath.
“I’m going to step into the refresher,” Poe says, swallowing thickly and already starting to back away. “Uh, we can talk about sleeping arrangements later. And I’ll tell you about how day-to-day stuff works on base. And, uh, yeah. Just wait a second.”
Poe ducks into the refresher before Finn can respond, shutting the door behind him. He’s shaking a little, hadn’t realized it until he’s confronted with the empty room and nothing but his own thoughts.
He’s slack-jawed and breathing unevenly when he looks into the mirror over the sink, seeing jagged edges and carefully constructed bravado and nothing even remotely close to what Finn deserves. It all comes flooding back, as nightmarish thoughts usually do, all at once: everything that ever brought happiness into Poe’s life, pulverized by Kylo Ren and his icy grip. Hope, quickly dwindling, even if he was Poe Dameron, whose patriotism could inspire whole crowds.
Then, suddenly, a singular ray of light in the form of a man in a Stormtrooper uniform, pulling his helmet off and looking at Poe with eyes that disarmed him. Who cared so deeply and knew what the right thing to do was, even in an environment that should have crushed any and all trace of goodness. And his story would have ended with sand in a desert wasteland where nobody would ever find him, enveloping him until there was nothing left of the man who burned so brightly and too quickly. All because of Poe.
Finn is too good and Poe has erred before. That’s a mistake he won’t repeat: he loved too hard once and Muran was gone before he could even process it. Poe made a promise to Rey – to the girl who looks at Finn like he hung the stars in the sky – that he’d keep Finn safe, and he always keeps his promises.
When he regathers his thoughts and steps back into the room, Finn is sitting on his bed, BB-8 at his feet.
BB-8 chirps in a relatively reassuring tone (for a droid): [I DO NOT THINK YOU HAVE UPSET HIM BECAUSE HE DID NOT SEEM EXTREMELY UPSET AND I KNOW THIS BECAUSE WE HAVE BEEN ACQUAINTED FOR A LONG TIME.]
Finn replies: “I don’t know what that means, but thanks.”
BB-8 looks over at Poe, and if astromech droids could convey facial expressions, it would no doubt look completely exasperated.
“Hey,” Poe says, leaning against the doorframe. “It’s almost dinner time. You hungry?”
Finn considers it for a moment before standing. “I could eat. Just as long as there’s more than one kind of food. I think I’ve had enough of protein bars to last a lifetime.”
Poe laughs, constantly amazed by this man, who has been through hell but keeps his good nature like no-one Poe’s ever seen. Finn’s certainly stronger than he is, that’s for sure.
“Oh, buddy,” Poe says. “You’re in for a pretty great surprise.”