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The Resistance, returned to its numbers (and then some) from before Crait, was gathered on Yavin 4, the night before their final assault on the First Order’s new base.
The Finale. Not the most subtle of names, but then again, subtlety had never been Ren’s strong suit.
Poe Dameron watched as his assorted friends, his family at this point, met and laughed and joked around a massive bonfire, putting off their fears for a few hours more, leaning into the warmth of friendship and hope.
He sat by himself, a few hundred yards away, on a crumbling, low stone wall, in semi-darkness. Poe had been absolute poo-doo at literature in his schooling, but even he knew a metaphor when he saw one.
He sat by himself, and stewed, and let anxiety crawl up his spine and darken his vision. It hurt to look at his friends, his family, laugh so light-heartedly, as though they’d forgotten that tomorrow...as though this was all going to…
“This seat taken, Commander?” Poe knew who it was without looking, but he looked anyway because honestly, he liked the view.
“No, ma’am.”
Rey giggled as she sat down next to him, setting her staff to the side and smoothing a hand over her braid. “It feels weird to hear you call me that.”
“You’re a general now, Sunshine.” Poe smirked at her, trying to hide the torment inside himself. “Ma’am comes with the territory.”
“I should order you not to make me feel so old.” He snorted at that - he was almost thirteen years older than she was - and Rey stuck her tongue out at him primly. They quieted after a minute, and the distant flames were nearly audible in the silence that descended over them. Poe wanted to say something, wanted to fill the silence, wanted to do something to hide the screaming fear inside of him, wanted to smile and joke and laugh just as well as the rest of them, but he found that he couldn’t do it. Besides, it was pointless to lie to Rey, anyway.
He could feel her question, even now. Poe steeled himself to speak, opening and closing his mouth a few times before he did - to her absolute credit, Rey didn’t push.
“Go ahead.” Poe rasped, the humidity and something else causing sweat to trickle from his hairline. “You can say it.”
“What’s wrong?” Her question was gentler than her usual technique, her usual brash curiosity. This was almost - no, you’re just imagining things. “I could - I didn’t mean to, but I could feel you straight across the clearing, Poe. What’s bothering you?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head, his nose wrinkling against the lie. “...Everything.”
“You’re afraid.” It wasn’t a judgment, and he didn’t take it as one. He and Rey had often shared their fears with each other, after all. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Tomorrow,” Poe gritted out, hating himself even as he admitted it. “I’m afraid about tomorrow.”
“A lot of us are.” Rey seemed to be unsure of how to hold herself while sitting next to him, frozen between giving him space and touching him, and Poe prayed viscerally that she’d land on the latter, if only so he could have something to ground him. She looked lovely, and she always did, but she looked impossibly lovely that night, the red in her hair highlighted by the firelight, her freckles more prominent than ever after all the time they’d spent outside the last few months. “But it feels - strange with you. Are you - do you think that tomorrow...something will...that you’ll…” Rey trailed off, looking sad, and Poe shook his head before looking away.
“I’m not afraid to die. I mean...I probably am, right? Going to die that is. Everyone’s gotta go sometime, and I’ve been flying on borrowed time for a while.”
“Hey.” Rey leaned over to bump his shoulder against his. “Don’t talk like that, Dameron.”
“Sorry.” Poe shrugged, his hands clasping and unclasping before he wiped his face wearily.
“What are you afraid of, then?” Rey stared steadfastly forward when she asked her question, and Poe had a moment where he questioned whether or not he should tell her. But as soft and sure as ever, Rey brushed against him in the Force - he’d recoiled the first time (over a year ago now) after Crait, still so shaken from Ren’s attack only days before he’d met her, but she’d felt so different, so kriffing sweet and light and good, that he’d listened to his gut and let his defenses down after awhile.
His gut was rarely wrong, after all.
Feeling slightly more confident in confiding in her this weakness of his, Poe half-smiled and shrugged, his shoulders hunching up towards his ears. “I guess I’m afraid of...I’m afraid that...this will all have been for nothing.”
Sweet, and light, and good. Rey didn’t waver next to him, and he pulled against it tentatively, trying to wrap himself in her warmth, the way he shouldn’t be allowed.
“What do you mean?” Rey leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees, her hands tangled together. She didn’t look at him.
“I mean - gods - I mean, I’m so afraid, all the time, that we’ll get wiped off the map, and all of it - the sacrifices, the deaths, the pain - it will have been for nothing. I’m afraid that the First Order will win, once and for all, and my parents will have given up everything for nothing, that Leia’s sacrifice will have been for nothing, I’ll have dedicated my life to this fight for nothing. I’m afraid that I’ll fail them all. That no matter what I do, it won’t have been enough.”
“It won’t have been for nothing.” Rey stared forward into the bonfire lit by the rest of the Resistance, and the flickering light cast shadows over her lovely features. Poe couldn’t look away from her. Grief and doubt tore at his heart, but Rey didn’t waver. Sweet, and light, and Good. Rey’s tongue darted out to wet her bottom lip, her narrow eyebrows lowering sharply over her eyes, normally hazel, but now darkened by the light. “It won’t, Poe.”
“You don’t know that.” Pitched low in the shadow of his internal battle, raging louder day by day, Poe’s voice almost shattered on the last word.
“No, I don’t, not for sure, but - that’s not how it works.” Rey turned to face him on the wall, pulling her feet up until her shins were pressed against his arm. Poe gripped the stone underneath him, trying to grab hold to something, something that would last. “Hey.”
Poe’s lips twitched despite his agony, and he flicked his eyes over to her. “Yeah?” Her hazel eyes were luminous, half her face now dazzlingly lit by the firelight, as she smiled at him.
“If we lost tomorrow.” She wrapped her hands around her knees, and Poe fought the urge to reach up and take one of her hands. He normally wouldn’t hesitate - he held hands with Rey frequently, as it seemed to be something she greatly enjoyed - but he didn’t want to taint her tonight. Sweet, and light, and good. His throat spasmed. He looked back towards the firelight.
Rey didn’t call him on it; she was kind like that. “ If we lose - and I’m not saying we will - it won’t have been for nothing. Because even if they kill every last one of us, even if we fail and we’re nothing more than stardust scattered across the galaxy - the galaxy will know we died fighting. They’ll know that good can always fight evil. That we tried. And if we die, more will take our place. Somewhere out there, there’s more of us, more who will hear what we did, and they’ll feel brave enough to stand up against the First Order. And as long as we fight, we aren’t losing. Not at all.”
Chirrut Imwe, guide us. Baze Malbus, protect us. Bodhi Rook, deliver us. Cassian Andor, save us. Jyn Erso, make straight our path. The names flashed across Poe’s mind, unbidden. While the mission had never been confirmed, per se, the legend had been passed from Rebel to Rebel, the whispers of Rogue One and their deaths still guiding the Resistance to this day, sustaining them, the reminder that yes the odds can be impossible, and yes, you can still beat them - even while losing everything.
Poe wondered if Rey knew their names, if she even knew they existed. But then again, when Poe had learned their names, Rey had been a child fighting for survival in the desert. So, maybe not.
“What do you want?” Rey’s words broke across his thoughts, and Poe tilted his head to the side, waiting for her to clarify. It had always been an easy give and take in conversation with Rey - despite the years between them, they were undoubtedly kindred spirits. Leia had always liked to comment on it. “Tomorrow - what do you want to happen?”
“I want us to win.” Poe’s hand tightened into a fist on his knee. “I want this war to be over. Even if I have to die - I want to die knowing that I did everything I could to protect the galaxy, and my friends, and you.” His neck warmed the second the words left his lips, but he didn’t retract them.
“Me?” Rey reached out to brush her fingers, feather-light, over his bicep. Poe shivered, in defiance of the jungle-humid air of Yavin 4.
“Yeah, you.” Poe pulled his eyes away from those gathered in front of the fire to look at Rey, and he almost lost his nerve. She hurt to look at. He had to look at her because it was the only thing that mattered right now, the ancient call of woolamanders scattering through the jungle behind them, the war looming in front of them, his anxiety churning underneath. Right now, it was him, and Rey, and he could hold onto that. For right now. “That’s what I want. You gotta survive this, Sunshine.”
She didn’t argue with him, just tilted her head to the side and smiled, a secret, slow smile that matched well with the blush on her cheeks. Poe found that he liked this smile. It was new.
“So do you.” Rey hadn’t argued with him, but Poe wasn’t going to extend the same honor; he opened his mouth to counter her, but she laid a finger across his lips and shook her head earnestly. “What I want is for us to win, and for everyone I love to survive. Including you.” Her voice dropped so low, he had to strain to hear her over the woolamanders, the jungle, their friends. “Especially you.”
Poe closed his mouth, her skinny finger still pressed to his lips, and slowly, so as not to disturb her claim on him, he nodded. Rey searched his face and, seemingly pleased, also nodded, pulling her hand away from him. Poe fought the urge to chase after the contact. He stayed posed like that, his head tilted towards Rey, his eyes now trained somewhere above her right knee, on the tan leggings she favored, his legs spread, his arm pressed against Rey’s shins as she sat quietly, thinking about something. They stayed like that for a few minutes, neither talking, but Rey remained as steady as ever, sweet, and light, and good.
A slight shift to the left, and his ring slid against his chest, a cool kiss of metal reminding him - he should tell her.
“And if you survive?” Rey’s question startled him, but not enough to shake him. Poe merely looked over at her, brow furrowed.
“Huh?” He bit his bottom lip. “Sorry. Wasn’t really…”
“I said, what if you survive?” Rey studied his face slowly, her eyes lingering on his, and then lower, and Poe’s stomach clenched. She couldn’t be looking at - no. “What if we win, and you survive? What does Poe Dameron wish for, then?”
He laughed, softly, awkwardly, completely at a loss for an answer.
“You don’t know?” - Rey scooted closer to him, and Poe thought that she looked cuter than she had any right to “You’ve honestly never stopped and thought huh, maybe I won’t die ?”- he could be dead tomorrow, and here she was, teasing him with that smile, looking so kriffing cute, reminding him that -
“I’d want a family.” It slipped out before he could stop it. Lifelong habit, honestly. Rey’s expression softened, away from teasing, towards something sweeter. “I’d want to go home.” His gaze flickered to the trees that surrounded him, and he sighed. “I mean, actually go home. Settle down, start a family, raise a couple kids.”
“You’d need a partner for that.” Rey poked at the stone wall, her eyes downcast now. Odd, she looked almost nervous. Rey was never nervous. “Right? You always said you’d never...settle down...without the right partner.”
“That’s right.” He’d explained his mother’s ring to her a few weeks after Crait, when she spotted the necklace during one of their early morning runs.
“So, you’d wish to go find them?” Rey’s smile looked wrong, like it was screwed on too tight, but it must have been a trick of the light because Poe blinked, and it looked normal again, her expression still soft and open. His heart pounded somewhere in the region of his throat, which really was anatomically incorrect, but here he was. “You’d wish to go find your perfect partner, start a family with them, if - when - you survive?”
“Nah.” Poe shrugged off-handedly, and leaned into Rey gently. “Don’t need to.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t need to go find them.” Poe let his eyes drift back over to Rey, and he saw that she was watching him with rapt attention. “I already did.”
“Oh.” Her face fell a fraction, something that looked like it caused her a good deal of guilt. Poe felt his smile twist slightly, his confusion winning over his control. Am I not being clear enough? “You’ve found your partner already?”
“Yep.” Poe didn’t take his eyes off of her, and he tilted his head slightly, trying to catch her eye. He almost fell off the damn wall, trying to lean over far enough to get her to look at him, and his ring slid palpably across his chest, but he finally succeeded. Rey smiled at him, and he hated how sad her eyes looked. She has to know - no? “Like I said, Sunshine. You need to survive tomorrow.”
Poe sat up and went back to watching the others ignore their own fears for a little while longer. His heart didn’t leave his throat, but he hoped he was passably demonstrating a coolness he definitely didn’t feel.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
Hesitantly, so hesitantly that he could feel it coursing through her, Rey reached out. Poe assumed she was going to take his hand, but she surprised him yet again.
Rey’s palm pressed against his uniform front, right over his heart, and coincidentally, over the circle of silver that had moved to rest over the left side of his chest. Her thumb stroked over his shirt nervously, and Poe’s heart resumed its panicked dance from earlier.
“If we both survive?” Her voice didn’t rise above a whisper, but Poe felt it in his veins as surely as if she’d screamed it in his ear.
“If we both survive,” he promised, reaching up to grip her wrist, his own thumb stirring circles into her skin. “I’ll tell you how much I love you.”
“I’d like that.” Rey’s knee knocked against his arm. “And if we win, I’ll tell you how badly I want to make a home with you.”
His eyes drifted shut, if only to catch the tears that threatened to fall otherwise. He kept his hand on her wrist, and he swore he could feel her heartbeat thrumming under her skin, across the space between them, matching his beat for beat. Next to him, Rey rested her forehead against his shoulder, and Poe slowly let his head drift to the side, until it rested on hers.
“If we win, then.” He looked towards the light once more, the spark that promised to carry them through.