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There is someone sitting on the edge of FN-2187’s bunk bed. A man. A strange, glowing man.
FN-2187 sits up, awkwardly trying to blink awake, he is seven years old and a bit scared but mostly confused. Stormtrooper sleeping quarters are built from the same basic layout model as all storage units. Giant, long halls with rows upon rows of bunk beds, three stories each. FN-2187 sleeps in the 729th row, bottom bed and there has never been anyone other than Troopers and Officers here.
The man is neither. He looks sad and not like anyone FN-2187 has ever seen on a spaceship, or anywhere else. He smiles, but the sadness doesn’t go away and then suddenly he vanishes into thin air.
The next morning, FN-2187 tells himself it was only a dream.
FN-2187 is far above average working with technology. He is ten, which is the age for Cadets to complete Basic and get sorted into Specializations.
If you’re very good at the graduation exam, you can become a pilot or maybe even an Officer. Every Cadet dreams of that. FN-2187 dreams of that. He often dreams of flying.
He holds a blaster in his small hands and hopes and hopes and pushes. He doesn’t even really look while shooting at the exam range. Of course, that’s against the rules and will get him failed if noticed, but it works better for him this way and right now, he needs it to work perfectly.
The recoil of his three shots blasts through his entire body and only then does he allow himself to focus his eyes on the target. There’s one single, clean hole right in the middle of it.
They’re projecting the results on the wall of the main deck, 5000 new Troopers, what is left of the FN series 0000-9999. The others were decommissioned during Basic. The ones that are left all too well-trained to express any sort of emotion, of course, but FN-2187 can feel it almost humming in the air, disappointment, pride, relief. He, too, scans the wall frantically.
FN-2175 – Sanitation
FN-2177 – Infantry
FN-2179 – Sanitation
FN-2180 – Infantry
FN-2182 – Infantry
FN-2183 – Engineering
FN-2185 – Infantry
FN-2186 – Sanitation
FN-2187 – Aviation
He smiles.
That night, he sees the strange glowing man again. He doesn’t talk, is gone in the blink of an eye. He still looked unspeakably sad.
FN-2187 always wanted to fly, so when he learns that the next two years will be entirely simulator training, he can’t help to be quietly, privately disappointed. But his Commanding Officer, a real pilot, says they’re very important anyway. And their blasters will be actual, sharp standard-issue weapons, even in the simulators, so they’ll have that, at least.
The first exercise is very easy.
You only have to shoot.
At first it’s a practice target that looks exactly like the one from Basic, except it’s in an environment FN-2187 doesn’t know, a forest. The young Troopers enter the simulator one after another. FN-2187 is the fifteenth in line. He needs less than one second to locate the target and aim. He shoots it, bullseye.
Then it’s an animal. A big, blue, tentacle-y one that FN-2187 can’t identify, bound to the post where the practice target stood. It’s his first day and he’s eager to impress. He gets the order. He shoots. It collapses.
In the next simulation, it’s a Quaggler. FN-2187 knows Quagglers. They’re native to the Stormtrooper Base Planet where he was trained. Big, hairy animals that carry great weights and are used for loading cargo. Non-aggressive, very easy to handle. Every Cadet gets assigned to one from years 4-7, when they help load ships as part of Basic. FN-2187 remembers his Quaggler, and how warm it was, and how sometimes, when no one noticed, he would stroke its head and get a lick of the thrice-spliced tongue in return.
FN-2187 is not seven anymore. His Commanding Officer gives the order.
And for one split second, FN-2187 hesitates.
He has practiced shooting before. Targets. Even, in some sims, living ones. He has been shown hundreds of videos, executions of many different life forms, humans too. Always knew, looked forward to shooting them himself.
Also knew FN-2176 and FN-2181, who were usually in his unit, who were decommissioned for not shooting quick enough during practice.
But it’s a Quaggler.
(Warmth-alive-childhood-affection-non-aggression)
Please, I don’t want to, FN-2187 doesn’t say. But he thinks it
shoots
and his blaster jams.
Blasters don't jam. Especially not inside simulations. FN-2187 tries shooting again. The Quaggler is still there, tied to that post, looking at him with all of his eight scared eyes. Nothing happens.
For exactly one precious second.
Then his Commanding Officer rips the blaster from his hand, shouting something that FN-2187 is too scared and confused to even comprehend. The blaster is pointed at FN-2187, shoots. And nothing happens again.
FN-2187 is still frightened and confused as the simulation blinks out around them and they’re back in the well-lit training center, in front of fourty-nine other young pilots.
For one horrible, terrifying second, FN-2187 is sure he is getting decommissioned now. He gets the order to fetch someone from Sim Maintenance instead.
The Troopers that arrive do not find an error.
The next morning, FN-2187 is informed that he has been re-assigned to Sanitation.
The bitter sting of disappoint washes over him and almost chokes him for a year, but gradually, the hurt stops flaring up when he watches the future pilots and he settles into the Sanitation routine, even though the longing for the sky for
(freedom)
flying burns in his heart so hot it leaves scorch marks.
He sometimes still sees the eyes of the Quaggler. He knows there is no kind of flying for the First Order that would get him away from that.
Twice, he sees the glowing man again. He lingers in a hallway in a less-used part of the ship as FN-2187 is cleaning away the dust there. FN-2187 has gotten to know him better by now, his long brown robes, the grievous scars on his face that barely looks older than the Troopers that just finished Specialization.
The man never speaks, but he smiles and he doesn’t look quite as sad anymore.
The thing is, his Commanding Officer, an older man who looks the other way when Sanitation workers chat during shifts or repair broken SaniDroids instead of decommission them, actually likes FN-2187. Lets him clean one of the flight sims on some slow days and doesn’t ask why it takes thirty minutes, as long as the sim is properly turned off afterwards.
When FN-2187 gets the orders for his first outside mission, he knows it’s meant as a reward.
On Jakku, there are villagers, frightened, young women and defiant old men and skinny, crying children.
Terrified eyes.
FN-2187 doesn’t shoot.
He doesn’t know if anyone notices.
And then there is Dameron, and FN-2187 knows him the way he knows practice target bullseyes and the crackle of electricity under his fingers and something much more achingly, bone-deep familiar.
Dameron, a pilot, a resistance fighter, FN-2187 did not know he could ever yearn for anyone as much as the sky, except it’s the same, exactly the same, flying and fleeing and Dameron.
FN-2187 doesn’t become Finn.
FN-2187 always was.
It’s Finn who meets Rey and realizes he knows her already, parts of her that he recognizes in himself. Electricity and target precision and the burning need for running. Rey, who tells him about the Force and how to steal starships.
It’s Finn who kisses Poe after he wakes up in the Medbay, after losing but not being lost, scared to shit and braver than ever.
It’s Finn who meets the glowing woman.
He finds her in a warehouse as he’s wandering around looking for something to do, he hasn’t been cleared for anything useful yet.
Immediately, he can tell she is from the same kind as his glowing man and by now, he also recognizes the humming sensation around her as pure Force, the way it surrounds Rey sometimes, when she’s a bit careless and unguarded.
Finn never dared to talk to the glowing man, but this is Finn the rebel, Finn-who-lives-with-Poe-and-kisses-him, Finn with a lightsaber scar in the back.
“Hello,” he greets the woman. He’s not sure what the polite form of address is (the only ones he know are ranks and he doesn’t quite remember Poe addressing someone he didn’t know yet).
“Hello Finn,” she says and an awed smile breaks out on his face, not just because she knows his name, but because she knows his name. Her voice is incredibly kind.
“Who are you?” He asks, curiousity breaking out of him like tiny D’Qar flowers in spring. She looks luminous, translucent and he wonders if she is corporal enough to touch.
“Padme,” she answers, smiling. There is a hint of the glowing man’s sadness in it.
“I saw a man like you, a few times,” Finn explains. “What exactly are you? I mean…” he trails off because Poe has explained to him that what are you is considered to be an offensive question by some. But Padme doesn’t seem to mind.
“That was Anakin,” she says. “He can’t stop looking out for slave children, can he?”
Finn shrugs, because he doesn’t know what to say. Anakin. In some way, it makes sense. Like a part of him has always known this, too. Has felt it in his bones. Of course Finn knows the story of Anakin, Poe told it, along with all the other Resistance lore. He just never got the impression that Anakin Skywalker looked out for anyone.
“Oh, he did,” Padme says, voice heavy with sadness and something almost like – anger? Finn is acutely aware of the fact that he hasn’t spoken aloud. Padme Amidala, from the stories Finn knows her only as the woman who died. “He’s going to spend the rest of forever trying to make up for it.”
Finn doesn’t understand what she means by that, he also isn’t sure he’s meant to, so he poses the more obvious question instead. “Why?” Why Anakin Skywalker, he means. And maybe a little, why me?
“I think he’s looking for who he was. Could have been. Wasn’t.” Padme is floating, she is wearing a long white dress and flowers in her hair. She is beautiful like a sunset on a foreign planet, far too strange for something so familiar.
"He was Darth Vader," Finn states. He has gotten to know the concept of pointless, petty beauty at the Resistance, elaborate hairdos for no other reason than being alive. Rey, entire bouquets of wildflowers twisted into her buns, laughing as she makes them bloom and wilt and bloom again at will. Finn wonders if Padme is something like that. Padme loved Anakin, he remembers. Padme wilted.
If the comparison angers her, she doesn't let it show.
“Of course you," she says instead, with a patience that he knows from General Organa. A patience that has survived firestorms. Outlived them. "You made a choice, Finn, and that is what made you. He made a choice. So did I. One choice always leads to another.”
Finn thinks about the Base Planet and Sanitation and Target Practice. Part of it is choices, but part of it has always felt far too big for him.
“It’s because of the force, isn’t it? Do I have it, too? I’ve never been able to move stuff with my mind, but sometimes, I feel- something. I can’t explain it. Is that why Anakin was looking for me? Is that why everything happened?”
Can Stormtroopers have the Force? Or Ex-Stormtroopers? Suddenly a terrible thought occurs to Finn and he flinches. He’s a clone. If he has it, then who else? How many thousands, millions, billions, all working for Ren?
“Oh, the Force,” Padme laughs. She doesn't seem to notice his concerns at all. “A dumb old Jedi story in the end, nothing-”
“I’ve seen it,” Finn interrupts, thinks of Rey who has entire stars in her heart, raw, pure power. “It’s not just a story. It’s real.”
“Of course it is. Like the sky is real. Except when you fly, it never really looks like it does from the ground, does it? And once you leave your home planet, you realize that the sky is everywhere. You are technically standing in the sky right now. You’re flying, always. That’s what it’s like with the Force. Everyone has it, everywhere. And it can be a great big darkness or where the light comes from. But it doesn’t make your choices for you and it doesn’t mean anything until you make it.”
“Anakin made it.” Finn realizes. “He made it mean something and then everything went to shit.”
“Pretty much,” Padme agrees. “He made his choice and killed millions and now he’s ghosting around slaver’s ships trying to give happy dreams to children that shared their last bread with their friends.” There is no judgement in her voice, but also no fondness. Anakin killed children, Finn thinks.
“Why are you here, then?” he asks. Thinks about happy childhood dreams. Flying. “I like my dreams quite as they are.”
(He immediately blushes as he realizes that if Padme can hear him even when he doesn’t speak aloud, then she can probably see the Poe-in-his-dreams pictures he has to actively push out of his thoughts now.)
“I’m a mother,” Padme smiles. She looks old and beautiful and sad and dead. “I can’t resist watching children grow up.”
Finn never had a mother. Finn is only now getting used to the tentative hope-joy-bubble feeling of having a family. Finn thinks of General Leia Organa, who is hard and kind and brilliant. Padme Amidala’s daughter.
“It’s not the Force that gave birth to my children and it’s not the Force that brought you here,” Padme says. There is something in her words that make Finn understand. “It was us, ourselves, our choices. It’s not in the Skywalker name or the Force or any of that.”
Finn nods.
“There’s be a war coming,” Padme continues, her voice insistent now. “A big one. And people will get caught up again and they will talk about the Light Side and the Dark side and all that, but it doesn’t matter. The Force is just ghosts and empty promises. What matters are the good things we build ourselves and that we choose to stick to them. Promise me you’ll remember that, Finn. Please.” She's a small dead mother with flowers in her hair. She's a shadow. She's fading.
“I promise,” Finn says and he tries to make sure she understands he means it. She seems to, because she smiles as reaches out to him with her pale, not-real hands that vanish like fog into the air. She leaves nothing but a faint, warm feeling.
Padme Amidala, Finn thinks, the woman who died and gave life and would not let even destiny get in the way of her kindness.
Finn doesn’t tell anyone about the encounter, not even Poe, because it’s one of the very few things that are his alone.
But he kisses Poe a little bit harder, and he thinks mine with a joy that has nothing to do with ownership and everything to do with hope.
The battle is over quickly, it was only a small First Order ship, two dozen TIE fighters that were shot down in minutes. The Black Squadron has already landed again, climbing out of their X-Wings without casualties or injuries.
Finn has waited on the ground, blaster in hand, in case the First Order would attempt a landing.
It takes thirty more seconds until the sirens signal the all-clear and Finn puts his weapon away again, light with relief.
One of the TIE fighters crashed only a few dozen feet away from him, quite narrowly missing the rebel hangar, with pure dumb luck. The fighter quite badly damaged, but the shape is still so familiar and Finn knows there is probably a dead Stormtrooper inside, TIE’s don’t have many crash safety measures. Troopers are expendable and the First Order would prefer them dead rather than captured, but Finn has to check for the tiniest glimmer of hope, of life. He’s already well on his way over when he hears Poe shout -
“Stay back, stay back, Finn.” His voice is panicked.
Instinctively, Finn looks turns back to Poe, stops for half a second, and that’s when the blaster hits right next to him.
“Finn,” Poe is still screaming, but he’s shooting, too, now, and Finn takes cover behind a big boulder. And then suddenly, everything gets terribly, horribly quiet.
Poe is the first thought that jolts through Finn, too awful to form out further. But as he sprints out from behind the stone, he sees Poe standing there, unhurt, shell-shocked, tear-stained. His eyes are fixed on what is left of the TIE fighter. It doesn’t seem like he sees anything else in the world.
Finn almost hesitates to turn, but he has to, and there’s a body lying in the wreckage still clutching a weapon, twistedtornbroken - reality blurs for a second and it’s as if Finn stumbled into
a mirror a nightmare a past he had desperately tried to claw himself out of
his own eyes, dead and empty, peering out below the damaged Stormtrooper helmet.
Finn runs over and that’s when he sees the designation number.
RN – 2187. Pilot.
He has to hold Poe that night, Poe who is so wrecked with guilt over the Starkiller already, Poe who kissed Finn and told him he’d never ever hurt him.
Poe who shot someone who looked exactly like Finn today.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Poe sobs into Finn’s chest, buries his head in the crook of his neck. Finn knows it’s because Poe can’t look at him right now, not even his face is Finn’s own. Everything belongs to the First Order.
Finn thinks about the Quaggler again, the villagers on Jakku. RN-2187, Pilot.
Padme.
“It wasn’t me,” he murmurs into the shaking, crying mess that is Poe. “I’m Finn. I made a choice. It wasn’t me.”
On another planet, in another system, an entire hall of Stormtrooper Cadets smile in their sleep. There is a very sad man standing by the main entrance, illuminating the first rows of bunk beds with a faint, supernatural glow.