Chapter Text
The Falcon glided to the ground with little difficulty, the long emerald grass beneath them rustling in the resulting wind. Landing had been a lot smoother ever since Rey took a gravity spanner to the landing gear, and for that Finn was going to owe her forever.
“All clear,” said Poe, voice crackling through the on-board comms. “Welcome back to Takodana.”
Finn released himself from the seat harness with extreme gratitude. It may have saved him from turning into Finn-paste on a number of occasions, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed getting pressure bruises on his clavicle every other trip.
D-0 whirred busily towards the exit ramp. Finn watched him go, one elbow on the holo-table, before pushing himself to his feet when the ramp actually lowered.
“Excitable little guy,” Poe said as he followed Finn down to solid ground. His hair blew a little in the breeze, somehow artfully tousled instead of a bird’s nest. “BB’s been good for him, I think. Been teaching him binary so he doesn’t fry his speakers so much.”
“That’s nice,” said Finn. The droids in question were a couple meters out, racing in lazy circles around long settled rubble from Maz’s castle. The cleanup efforts were still ongoing, even a year after the battle.
Poe clapped a hand on Finn’s shoulder. “So, what’s this business you got down here?”
“I’ve got some, uh, information to pick up. Vao said she found something I might be interested in, no finder’s fee required.”
Poe raised his eyebrows. “I’ll bring extra creds just in case.”
“She’s not that bad,” Finn protested. To be fair, she probably was. But he really did trust her on this one — for one thing, the information wouldn’t fetch much on the open market. Vao was a criminal, but she wasn’t unreasonable.
Silently, Poe handed him a cred chip. Finn gave what he hoped was an incredibly dirty look.
“Look,” said Poe, seriously. “My career as a spice runner may have been entirely Rebel-sanctioned, but I still picked up a lot of life lessons there. The most important one is to be prepared for anything.”
Finn considered that for a second. “I don’t think that lesson is actually exclusive to spice running,” he pointed out. “But I get it.” He glanced out towards the horizon — colourful banners flapping in the wind.
Poe followed his gaze, and frowned. “Hey,” he said, sounding a little panicked. “Where are the kriffing droids?”
The kriffing droids, as it turned out, were not on the road to civilisation. They weren’t trundling happily around the market, or living it up in the cantina. They were not, in fact, anywhere nearby.
“Don’t worry, man,” said Finn, already worrying. “BB probably just took Dio for a guided tour.” There hadn’t been a reported First Order sighting on Takodana in months — he’d been sure to check before he set foot on the Falcon — but he still found himself tensing up as they walked through the market, scanning for any sign of white and black plasteel.
“Right,” said Poe, absently. He waved a hand in a lazy half circle, taking in a wide array of market stalls held up by wood and cloth. “Let’s have a look around. Maybe someone’s seen our runaways.”
Their first stop was a stall selling jewellery, which surprised Finn. Poe had worn the same tarnished silver chain round his neck the whole time Finn had known him — he could remember the glitter of it showing beneath his bloodstained collar, back on the Finalizer.
“You in the market for earrings?” He asked, peering at a steel pendant carved with an unfamiliar alphabet. “Looking to get back in Zorii’s good books?”
Poe smiled ruefully, resting his hand on a rack of bracelets. “That ship’s sailed, buddy. Nah, I’m just looking. My mom always liked this kind of thing.”
Finn’s eyes widened. He blinked, deliberately, and tried to look only politely interested. Shara Bey was, for all people around Poe loved to talk about her legacy, usually off limits off-base. “Really?”
Poe hummed in agreement, looking down at the stall. The shopkeeper was at the other end of the counter talking to a Trandoshan in monk’s robes. They were more or less in private. “Used to let me try on some of it, when I was a kid. I liked shiny stuff.”
“You still do,” Finn pointed out.
“Don’t mock me,” said Poe. “I’m a hero of the resistance.” He smiled again. “Anyway, I don’t think any of this is really worth the creds. I’m a good negotiator, but not that good.” He turned away from the stall, avoiding the shopkeeper’s many eyes with practiced ease, and pulled Finn onto the next place.
Finn went willingly, if only because he was starting to suspect the Trandoshan was less than happy with how her own negotiation process was going. His instincts were telling him a fight was, if not on the horizon, definitely gathering in the clouds.
The next stall was full of data crystals heaped into bins with labels that read, for example, ‘Feet’. Finn was not hopeful about it.
Poe glanced across at him, lips pursed in the way that Finn knew meant he was trying very hard not to laugh. It made his cheekbones look, somehow, even better.
“Don’t judge,” said Poe. “I’m sure it’s all totally innocent.”
Finn made a face. “I’m not gonna stick around and find out.”
“Oh, and I was just about to say hello.”
Finn turned on his heel. A stocky Twi’lek stood, arms crossed, head tilted up so she could meet his gaze.
“Vao!” He grinned. “Good to see you.”
“Wish I could say the same,” said Vao. “But I really cannot encourage that jacket with those pants. Who raised you?”
Finn shrugged. “Was hoping you could tell me.”
Poe’s eyes widened. Finn nudged him with an elbow, and turned back to Vao. She raised her eyebrows and said nothing.
It was incredible, Finn thought, how much some people could say without opening their mouth.
“You got the info or not, Vao?”
She nodded, and dug into one of the many pockets that covered her jacket. It seemed perfect for a smuggler, if only because anyone doing a search for illegal material would get bored before they reached her collarbones. After a few moments she pulled her hand out of an inner pocket, laid her palm flat, and offered a data chip to Finn. It was unremarkable on the outside, the same cargo bay gray as everything the First Order had taken on from the Empire.
“No charge this time, General. Have to generate goodwill with the new overlords somehow.”
“Not overlords,” said Finn. “Not even close.”
“If we were overlords,” Poe cut in. “You would definitely know it.”
Vao looked unconvinced. “Have a good vacation. Don’t hurry back.”
Finn waved her off. Poe sidled a little closer to his side and glanced down at the datachip. Unconsciously, Finn tightened his grip. Precious cargo, for once.
“So, what was all that about?”
The Trandoshan had concluded their business while they met with Vao, leaving with a tall stack of crystals and a considerably lighter cred balance, so it was easy enough to amble quickly in the opposite direction before the stallholder spotted them.
Market stalls selling everything from livestock to hairbrushes passed them by as Finn and Poe walked around the square, stopping occasionally to pick up trinkets and put them down again without comment. It was almost soothing.
So of course Poe had to ruin it by actually wanting to know what was going on. Finn sighed. Honestly, hadn’t he realised nothing good ever came from curiosity?
Poe nudged him in retaliation.
“Vao’s message was a little more specific than I may have let on, before,” Finn began. The closest stall, one selling carved miniature beasts for an apparently reasonable price, seemed like a good enough place to pause. He needed something to do with his hands. “She thinks it might be point of origin info for a few of the Stormtrooper training barracks.”
Poe looked confused for a moment, eyes blank, before his expression cleared. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, kriff. She found your home planet?”
Finn shrugged. He cradled a plasteel vulpix in both hands, trying not to let his fingers shake too much. It was a delicate thing. “Could be. The data isn’t isolated. It’s just a list of planets linked to each training platoon. FN is in there.”
“Guess we’d better get our course charted, then,” said Poe, decisively. He put down the figure he’d been inspecting — a dark green Krayt dragon — and tugged Finn away.
He set a firm pace back towards the Falcon, sitting in comparative peace on the horizon. The sun was beginning to set when they reached the boarding ramp, a riot of amber and emerald green against the darkening sky.
“Hey,” said Finn. He glanced around the grasslands, trying to spot an antenna peeking above the castle’s rubble. “Where’re the kids?”
Poe frowned. “They should be back by now.” He stuck two fingers in his mouth and, in a move which Finn continued to envy, whistled sharply.
It didn’t echo. A few moments later, a faint beeping sound blew in on the wind.
“They’ll be here soon,” said Poe, shoulders slumping a little. “Apparently they’ve had a real adventure.”
Finn put a hand on Poe’s shoulder, felt the warmth of his skin even through the fabric of his shirt. He’d spent most of the day so focused on what the data chip would reveal that he’d sort of forgotten to enjoy a little free time with his best friend.
“Next planet,” he promised, squeezing Poe’s shoulder. “We’ll actually do something fun.”
“It’s a date,” said Poe. His voice sounded a little choked.
Finn glanced up at a rapid beeping noise, only to spot D-0 speeding towards his shins at maximum velocity.
He already had a collection of bruises from the little droid, but he couldn’t really begrudge them considering how affection starved it was.
General Organa had once told him, smiling gently the whole time, that he seemed to spend a lot of time reading human emotion into droid behaviour.
“But,” she’d admitted, glancing at R2-D2 wheeling himself across the cargo bay, “I’m guilty of it myself. Both Luke and I get it from our father, I think.”
Finn missed her so much, sometimes, that it hurt to breathe. It was odd, having that kind of relationship with a commanding officer.
D-0 did, in fact, make contact with Finn’s legs, but he did at least manage to brake at the last moment.
“F-fun!” He squeaked, modulated voice stuttering through his speaker unit.
“Glad to hear it, Dio,” said Finn. “Come on, let’s get going.”
BB-8, busy being bear hugged by Poe, beeped in agreement.
The ramp lowered with a reluctant groaning sound. Poe winced.
“I’ll do a full diagnostic when we’re on board,” he offered as they watched the droids trundle up the incline. “Hopefully nothing that’ll stop take-off, but we might have to find a junk trader for parts sooner rather than later.”
“Rey might know somebody,” Finn suggested. “Or Zorii. Two geejaws with one stone.”
Poe nodded thoughtfully. “Could do with a catchup either way. You got their frequency?”
“Of course,” said Finn. “But it can wait a bit. I’ll get the data chip decrypted and let you know our options.”
Poe saluted him lazily and left for the cockpit. Finn let his eyes drift downward for a moment, despite the guilt. It was bad enough spending time swooning over Poe’s hair. If Rey found out things were getting worse, she’d laugh herself sick.
And tell Rose and Jannah. Really, it was for the best that he leave off messaging her until he stopped being as obvious.
The data chip was easy enough to decrypt — Vao had messaged him the key separately, from a separate data server. Watching the information unfurl was overwhelming, line upon line of green text filling the screen of his datapad.
He watched it for a few minutes. His chest felt tight, his throat starting to ache.
“You alright, buddy?”
Finn jumped. Poe looked sad, just for a moment, before he leaned over the back of Finn’s chair. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his flight suit, arms exposed to the cool air of the cargo bay. Finn watched as goosebumps raised on his skin, and felt his throat get somehow even tighter.
“Uh, yeah,” he said, belatedly. He swallowed a few times. “Just feeling a little weird. I haven’t even thought about having a home planet in years. They kind of beat that out of you early.”
He didn’t look up at Poe after that. He could imagine the sadness in his eyes, and the guilt he felt just from that was bad enough.
Poe sighed, breath warm against Finn’s ear. “Any leads so far? Looks like a lot to sift through.”
“It’s not so bad,” he allowed. He scrolled up a few pages, back to the beginning of the FN registry. “See, it’s a little more organised than I expected. There are ten thousand troopers in each designation, but it looks like there were subcategories they never told us.”
Ability groupings, projected ranking, potential promotion material — it was an insight into the First Order that Finn had never wanted, and didn’t particularly want even now. He supposed Jannah’s group might be interested; their splinter group was rapidly becoming an entire network of ex-troopers and any more knowledge of how the Order had commodified their existence might be a new rallying point for them.
The important part for Finn’s purposes was that his own designation, 2187, was in a sub-group of only a few dozen people, with half a dozen planets between them.
He explained as much to Poe, who frowned down at the datapad and nodded as he spoke. Poe was good at paying attention.
“So those are our options,” Finn concluded. “I’ll put the coordinates for all six in the nav system, and you can choose our first vacation spot.”
Poe nodded again. “Your wish is my command, General,” he said, fondly. His eyes crinkled a little as he smiled. “I’m really happy for you, Finn. You know that?”
Finn felt blood rush to his cheeks. “Thanks, Poe. I hope… well, you know.”
There were a lot of variables involved. Finn didn’t like variables. As a trooper, choices had been made for him, or they were made with the understanding that the consequences were not his business. Personal responsibility had been hard to adjust to. The first time he’d made a choice outside the First Order, he’d got Poe, and then got Poe killed. A few good ones later, he’d saved Rey and ended up stuck in the medbay for a month.
It was the uncertainty that kept him up at night.
Poe settled a hand on Finn’s shoulder. “Yeah, buddy. I know.”