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Han marches a miserable-looking Poe into Leia’s office like he’s some errant teenager caught trespassing, depositing him unceremoniously in the chair opposite her desk.
“Tell him to go home,” Han says. “He’s not listening to me.”
“Mr. Solo,” Poe protests, tossing Han a look of utter betrayal. He’s pale, a thin sheen of sweat over his forehead.
“And tell him to stop calling me that,” Han grouses, turning to stomp off again. “Tell him he’s fired if he keeps calling me that.”
“What am I supposed to call him?” Poe asks Leia dolefully. His voice is off, scratchier than it should be. “Han? Am I supposed to just call him Han? The greatest pilot of all time and I’m supposed to just –” He pauses to cough into his elbow.
“Maybe not of all time,” Leia says thoughtfully, and leans forward to give him a long, critical look. Poe avoids her eyes. She’s impressed that he manages not to squirm.
“You’re sick,” she says flatly.
“No,” Poe answers. He sniffs and reaches for a tissue on her desk. “Maybe. I’m okay.”
And this is a sort of sour tradition between them, Poe telling her he’s okay when she tells him that he isn’t.
It’s good to have him back. Of course it is. But she remembers, sometimes, when she looks at him in the wrong light, when he gets a certain distance to his expression. She remembers him rail-thin and bloodied, gazing at her with that dim-but-still-burning flare of hope. She remembers his smile, just as honest and bright as it always was, and the wavering note in his voice when he’d said General. His knees had gone weak after that, and they’d ended up bringing him back on a stretcher.
The extent of his injuries hadn’t been a surprise; she had, after all, expected to find him dead. The way he’d flinched at being touched, well. Certainly difficult to watch, but only to be expected.
It was the way he’d looked at Leia, like he’d still follow her anywhere, that had nearly knocked the breath out of her. She remembers wondering how in the hell she’d earned that.
He’s looking at her like that right now. She says, “Quit lying to me, Dameron,” and his gaze flicks away again.
“I’m not,” he insists. “I’m not that bad.” A definite rasp in his voice there.
“You’re not flying today,” Leia answers, and Poe’s face falls. But he recovers swiftly as usual, determination flashing back to his eyes.
“I don’t need to fly,” he says, which is the worst lie he’s ever told her. “I can do paperwork or something.”
Leia has to make a real effort not to roll her eyes at him. “I don’t need you getting germs all over my paperwork.”
He frowns, and regroups. “I can work on the Corsair –”
“Han doesn’t need you sneezing on the Corsair.”
Poe’s shoulders slump. “I would never sneeze on the Corsair,” he mutters, a bit petulant, but she can see the resignation in his face.
“Get your dog,” Leia tells him, “and go home. We need you well.”
He stiffens, and she hears it belatedly, the echo of her own words from years ago. We need you well, Commander. Doesn’t matter where. If you have to go home to get well, then go.
(She stands by that. She would rather have a soldier discharged and recovering at home than pushing himself into a catastrophic breakdown, which was what Dameron seemed to be aiming for at the time. But losing him had been like the squadron losing a limb. It didn’t hold together much longer after that – it probably never would have, for reasons far beyond their control, but between Muran’s death and Poe’s capture...
She knows he felt – might still feel – responsible for this, because he’d attempted to apologize to her. For being tortured. She’d shut that down about three words in.)
“We’ll be here waiting for you when you feel better,” Leia adds. Because that’s something she can promise him now. “Corsair and all.”
He seems mollified by that, at least. He’d been so thrilled to see Han carting that thing to the airfield, broken to pieces as it was.
(Han had noticed. “If you fix it, it’s yours,” he’d said with a conspiratorial grin, and Leia had been genuinely concerned that Poe was going to faint.)
“I have students scheduled this week,” Poe says, looking up reluctantly.
“We’ll reschedule them. They’ll understand.”
“You could always get somebody else –”
“Poe,” says Leia, “they won’t want anybody else.”
Poe’s grin is slow and surprised. He opens his mouth, and then promptly descends into a coughing fit.
“Uh,” he says when he emerges, blinking at her. He stands up. “Okay. I’ll – go and get BeeBee, and I’ll –” He trails off. His legs wobble, and he collapses back into the chair, looking puzzled at this turn of events. “Huh.”
“Poe,” Leia says again, this time in a sigh. She stands up and heads for the door. “You stay right here.”
He turns his head toward her, frowning. “Why?”
“Because I’m getting your dog and I’m taking you home,” Leia informs him, which gets her a horrified look.
“You don’t have to do that,” Poe protests, like she’d suggested throwing him into the sea. Now he squirms in his seat. “I can handle it, I’ll just – if you just give me a second, or like...a juice box –”
“Poe,” says Leia for the third time. “Shut up.”
He sighs at her, just long and dramatic enough to make her check a smile. Then he shuts his mouth and salutes.
*
“Tell me about your boyfriend,” Leia says, climbing into the driver’s seat. The car’s a scrappy old thing – they always are when Han’s involved – but it’s been modified to within an inch of its life and given a few new coats of paint to hide the evidence of its misspent youth.
It’s also very, very fast. Poe seemed enamored of it, running his hand along its sleek side before seatbelting his dog in the back with the same car-safety harness he’d adapted for the air.
“Tell you what?” Poe says now from the passenger’s seat, sounding mildly alarmed. She glances over to see a faint blush across his cheeks, although that could be courtesy of whatever-the-hell illness he’s contracted.
“About your boyfriend,” Leia repeats, unable to suppress a smile. She’s met Finn only once so far, briefly, when Poe brought him by the flight academy to show off. (She still isn’t sure whether he was showing off Finn or showing off to Finn.) She’d found him to be polite, quiet, and altogether refreshingly grounded, which might explain why Poe – restless, stubborn, daring Poe – seems so infatuated.
“He’s –” Poe starts, and then flounders, changes tack. “What d’you want to know?”
“Well, for one thing, is he the sort of boyfriend who’ll take care of you when you’re sick?”
“Oh. I haven’t –” He pauses to cough. “Haven’t tested that. Yet.” She can practically hear him hesitating, holding his breath, and there’s a sheepish note in his voice when he goes on. “But he, uh. We sort of met when I got hit by a car, so. He did help me with that.”
“Poe Dameron,” Leia sighs, exasperated. “Always something.”
“Yeah, well. You know me.”
She catches a glimpse of his rueful smile as they turn out of the driveway and onto the main road. From the rearview mirror she can see BB-8 snuffling at the back window, so she lowers it enough for him to stick his snout out into the wind. (“I rescued him from a dumpster,” Poe had explained. “Of course you did,” she’d replied, which seemed to make him proud.)
“He’s really good,” Poe says, after a moment, quieter. He’s leaning his head against the passenger side window, eyes on the world blurring past. “Finn, I mean. Just...really good. Like he’s always trying to do the right thing, to help people. Even if he’s never met them.” There’s bare adoration in his voice. “He’s just...one of those people. One of the good guys. You know?”
“Yes,” says Leia, gazing out at the road ahead, “I know the type.”
*
She keeps him talking the rest of the ride into the city, asking questions here and there, like Have you seen your father lately? (No, but he had an hour long conversation with Kes over the phone yesterday about various improvements being made to the ranch, and then Kes scolded him for another twenty minutes for not bringing Finn to visit yet, so Poe figures he’s doing all right.)
and, How’s the rest of the squad doing? (Good, he thinks, just busy, but they’re planning to come visit the flight academy one day next week to see her and, wait, that was supposed to be a surprise so she should pretend to be surprised because otherwise he’ll be in trouble.)
and, What does Finn do for a living? (Paperwork at a mechanic shop, mostly, but he’s studying to be an environmental engineer in order to save the entire planet, because he’s just that kind of hero.)
Poe’s blinking sleepily at her by the time she pulls up alongside his apartment building (which is crumbling a little, but surprisingly decent given the fact that he’d been living on VA benefits his first couple of years out – she wonders if Kes has anything to do with that). It takes him a moment to realize where they are, and then he gives a soft oh and jolts upright, stumbling out of the car and unbuckling BB-8 from the backseat.
“Are you good to go up by yourself?” Leia asks, leaning out the car window, and Poe snaps another smart salute in response. She rolls her eyes. “Enough with that. Are you good or not?”
His grin is a little hazy, but he’s standing steady enough, his dog sitting there looking at him like he’s the center of the universe. “Yes, ma’am,” Poe says. “Promise. Thanks for the ride.”
“You take care of yourself,” Leia answers, giving him a stern stare, and he looks properly chastised by that alone.
“I will,” he says, standing up straighter.
“And don’t you come back until you’re better. I don’t need you getting anybody else sick.”
“I won’t.”
“And if you call Han ‘Mr. Solo’ again, he really might fire you.”
Poe gives a full-body sigh. “Okay,” he says reluctantly.
She looks him over critically one more time. “Tell your good-guy boyfriend to bring you over some soup,” she adds, and now she’s sure he’s blushing.
“Aye-aye, General,” he answers.
She waits at the curb until he’s made it inside the building, feeling oddly like she’s dropping a child off at school.
(“That kid who always looks at you like you hung the moon?” Han had said, when she’d first suggested offering Poe Dameron the flight instructor position.
“Not a kid. He’s twenty-eight,” Leia had answered, and then remembered herself and amended, “Thirty-two.”
Han scoffed. “Practically a toddler.”
“Who broke your flightspeed record his first day out,” Leia reminded him.
He’d scowled, but his eyes had betrayed him as usual, lighting up with interest. “All right,” he’d said. “Let’s bring him in.”)
It’s good to have Poe back. To see how the shadows are fading from his eyes. To see him moving with easy grace again, injury-free, unflinching. To hear him talk about a life he’s clearly growing to love. To know his reckless bravery is still untouched by all that’s tried to tear it down.
To know she hasn’t failed him.
Her phone buzzes with a text from Han, just as she’s about to pull out into the street again.
is the kid gonna live?
Leia rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling as she taps out a reply.
i think he just might.