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“Poe. Poe Dameron. Wake up, will you?”
Poe grunts at the noise, his brain taking its time in picking the words out of it. Then there’s a hand on his shoulder, and he’s shooting up and sideways so fast that he slams his head against the wall. His vision flares into some pretty interesting colors for a second there before clearing up.
“The hell, Poe,” says Jessika Pava, drawing her hand back like he’d burned it.
Poe squints at her. “This is D’Qar,” he says stupidly, rubbing at his head and blinking.
“Very good, Commander,” Jess answers dryly, but she’s giving him a suspicious look he doesn’t like much. “You were supposed to be in medical like twelve hours ago, they were looking for you.”
“Medical,” Poe repeats, and frowns, shifting and trying to feel what hurts the most. It’s all kind of a blur of aches and pains from – what? Jakku. Right. Right. Jakku, and then...
Legs arms cuffed can’t move someone laughs someone hits him again again again again and then dark and cold and dark and then the mask and the mask and...
And then, well, Jakku again. He rubs at his eyes now, hard. He has a vague memory of landing back at the base, exhausted and hurting, of finding the General, giving his report, and...
Oh. Right. She’d told him to go to medical, yeah. And he’d come back here to shower first and then he’d sort of just passed out across the bed.
For...for twelve hours, apparently.
“Is the General mad?” he asks, with sudden trepidation.
Jess snorts. “Come on, boss,” she says, which isn’t an answer and doesn’t make him feel better at all. She puts her hand on his arm and she’s slow and careful about it and he still has to suppress a hard flinch. Great. How long is that going to last? Gritting his teeth, he climbs out of his bunk and sways with a wave of dizziness, leaning against the wall to get his bearings again.
“BeeBee Ate,” Poe mumbles. Because he remembers all of the sudden. Watching his little droid, the best droid in the whole galaxy, roll off alone into the desert. He remembers, I’ll come back for you.
“I know,” Jess says, gently. Everybody probably knows, don’t they? That Poe let them all down. Let his droid down, even.
“Shit,” he says, running a hand over his face and then up into his hair. It feels sandy still. He’d taken like, what, three showers since Jakku? “I have to –”
“Not right now, you don’t. Right now you have to get your ass to medical, per General Organa’s orders. And I’ve got Snap and Kare for back up on that. Soon as I say the word.”
Poe stares at her miserably for a moment, thinking. This is a more difficult task than it should be. It feels like he’s all scrambled up. Like some of that sand made its way into his head too. He remembers...he remembers most of it, but some things are fuzzy and some of it he thinks his brain is just actively trying to forget, which might be for the best.
“Can’t I just –” he starts, and then he sees the determined look on Jess’s face. He sighs and changes course. “Look, can I just get changed first?”
Jess raises her eyebrows. “Sure.”
Poe waits, but she doesn’t move, folding her arms and staring him down. He heaves a bigger sigh. “Come on, Jess, I’m not gonna go climbing out the window and then crouch in the bushes till I can jump out and steal the nearest X-wing.”
“That was...extremely specific,” Jess replies, narrowing her eyes.
“Can you at least turn around,” Poe grumbles, closing his eyes for a second and running his hand through his hair again, tightening his fingers until it hurts. The pull of new pain actually feels kind of good, sorta distracting from the older aches. He must get an odd look on his face, though, because something like worry flits across Jess’s expression.
“Yeah, fine, Commander Modesty,” she says. “I’ll turn around.” And she does.
“Thank you,” Poe says. He changes into his least-wrinkled shirt and pants, and after a moment’s thought, drags on his good boots just in case he really does need to run and hop in an X-wing in a hurry. Because seriously, they can’t keep him in medical for more than a few hours, can they? No way. He’s good besides a few ugly bruises, and anyway they need him too much to keep him down for long.
“Okay,” he says, and Jess turns around and holds out her arm with a flourish like she’s about to lead him in a dance. Poe takes it solemnly.
“Let’s go, flyboy,” she says, and leads them into the hall.
“If you say so, flygirl,” he answers, and she elbows him in the ribs just a little and he – uh, wow, he flinches pretty bad. Jess stops walking and Poe doesn’t and he winds up yanking them both a little off-balance.
“Poe,” Jess says, letting go of him. “Lift that shirt up.”
“Now that’s just plain harassment,” Poe answers. “I can write you up, did you know that?”
But he lets Jess pull the hem of the shirt up herself while he stands there uncomfortably, hoping nobody comes by. And she lets out a curse. Poe winces. There’d been a reason he’d wanted her to turn around before.
“Boss, you got fucked up,” she says.
“It was a hell of a crash,” he answers, shrugging. He doesn’t look down at the bruises he knows are there. Instead he gives Jess a tired grin. “A daring and courageous escape. Just another ordinary day for your hero.”
“Right.” Jess gives him a sideways look, and then she takes him by the hand and marches them forward again.
“You really don’t need to hold my hand,” Poe points out.
“And yet look at me doing it anyway.”
“Jess –”
“Would you rather have Snap hold your hand?”
“Well, yeah, he’d probably be a lot gentler about it.”
She laughs, and he throws her a tired smile, and she says, “We missed you, boss.”
“Yeah,” says Poe, tightening his fingers around hers. “Yeah, I missed you too.”
*
Doctor Kalonia is not impressed by his daring and courageous escape. When Jess leaves, the doctor makes Poe come and sit on a bed in the far corner, quiet and removed from the usual bustle of the medbay.
“Commander,” she says, “we both know those bruises aren’t from a crash.”
Poe swallows, and then summons a weak version of his usual smile. “Well, you know how it is, doc,” he says, and has absolutely no idea what he means.
Kalonia raises her eyebrows. “Actually, I’m not sure I do. Care to enlighten me?”
Poe’s smile falters. “They wanted information,” he says, a little quieter. “I wouldn’t give it to them. You know how that goes.”
She nods at him, seemingly unsurprised, and makes a note on her datapad. “The General spoke to me,” she adds after a beat.
Poe feels the breath punched out of his lungs. “Did she?”
Kalonia levels her sharp gaze on him. “There were some details from your report that she felt were relevant to your medical care. She didn’t seem confident that you’d remember to share them.”
“Oh.”
“Poe,” says Kalonia, and he lifts his eyes to meet hers. “I need to know the truth. All of it.”
“You heard it already,” Poe says, shrugging. “From the General.” His tone takes on a level of resentment there that he hadn’t expected, and he feels a twinge of guilt.
“And you’re certain you told her everything?” Kalonia presses.
And Poe feels this sort of pounding ache start behind his eyes. He wishes, for so many reasons, that BB-8 was here right now. Not that the droid would be much help against Jess or Kalonia, but it’d be a comfort at least.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I told her everything.”
It’s kind of a lie, and Kalonia clearly knows it, but she doesn’t push him again. She just nods, and adds something else to his file. Poe Dameron is a terrible liar, he imagines. Poe Dameron has a head full of sand.
“Am I good to go?” he asks with forced cheer, staggering upward again, and Kalonia looks up at him with an incredulous expression. His stomach sinks.
“Really, Dameron?” she says. “You really think I’ll let you walk out of here like that?”
“Like what?” he protests, but she just shakes her head and takes hold of his wrist, pulling him gently down again.
“I’m prescribing bedrest,” she says. “I want you here for at least three days, if the General can spare you that long.”
“Three days?” Poe bursts out, and he knows he’s looking at her like she’s gone insane, which isn’t entirely fair. But he can’t help it. It’s already been too long since Jakku, since he left BB-8 all alone – and then there’s Finn, the stormtrooper-turned-hero who’d disappeared into the desert somewhere. Poe hopes he made it through. Hopes both of them did. (I’ll come back for you. I’ll come back for you.)
Kalonia continues as though he hadn’t spoken. “And after that, I’m recommending you a counselor.”
Poe’s brow furrows. “Doctor,” he starts, “I really need –”
“What you really need, Commander, is some rest.” He must give her a Look at that, because Kalonia smiles and lowers her voice a little. “Just a few days, Poe. And then you can get back to the daring and courageous escapes. Although I’d really try to limit the crashes from now on.”
“I’ll consider it,” he says, and she gives him the same exasperated, fond look that the General gives him now and then. And he can’t help feeling just a little bit better, a little more settled, in spite of everything that’s lost and everything that’s wrong.
*
General Organa, it turns out, cannot spare him for that long. It’s a relief to find her there at his bedside when he wakes up from muddled dreams the next day. Poe struggles up onto his elbows. “General Organa,” he says, a bit of a yawn in his voice.
“I hate doing this,” she answers, looking him over, and he feels her eyes resting on the still-raw wounds on his face. “But we need you, Poe.”
He can’t help but beam at her. “And here I am.”
She gives him a long look. “You know what I’m going to ask you. And I’m telling you right now – no exaggerating, no lying, no maybes. I’m not losing you to your own pride, Dameron, and you’re not losing me anybody else.”
Poe’s grin melts away, and he nods. “I understand, General.”
“Good. So, tell me: Are you fit to fly?”
He is. Of course he is, he always is. But he makes himself pause, think it over, for her. “I’m a little banged up,” he admits. “But they’re just bruises. I can fly no problem.”
General Organa looks him over once more, like she’s trying to determine the veracity of this claim. He just blinks back at her, trying for his part to keep from jumping out of bed and running to the nearest X-wing.
“Good,” she says at last, and stands up. “I’ll see you in twenty minutes for your briefing.” She pauses, and grants him a small smile. “We found your droid.”
And Poe – well, Poe feels so light that it’s like all the sand has drained right out of his head. “BeeBee Ate? You found BeeBee Ate?”
The General nods. “Get ready, Commander,” she says, heading for the door.
Poe’s grinning too much to even answer. He throws her a salute and climbs out of bed, and all the aching seems to disappear into a muted sort of background noise. None of that matters now. They’ve found BB-8, and they need him, and he’s going to make up for all of it. For Jakku. Everything.
“I’m coming, buddy,” he mutters, and shoves his feet into his boots.