Chapter Text
“Feel the force.”
“Feel...the force.”
“Let its energy flow through you.”
Finn takes a deep breath, rolling his shoulders. “Letting it flow.”
“Focus. On the light. On the dark. Everything you feel, and where it stems from.”
He peers into his center, his ever spreading roots, and tries to find himself.
The light. Rey. Poe. BB-8. Rose. Chewie. The Falcon . General Organa.
The dark. His armor. Starkiller Base. Phasma. Dark corridors. Cold destroyers. His issued blaster. The stitches along his jacket.
Though that feeds back into the light. Generocity. Acceptance. Family. It’s all connected. It’s all balanced.
Yet he can’t find what he's looking for. And the force refuses to show him.
Finn opens his eyes, the hand he had raised plopping into his lap. “I felt nothing.”
“You lifted one rock,” Rey smiles. “I saw it.”
She offers him a hand, her grip much more strong and sturdy than his. A line of calluses runs along her upper palm, the same line she swears Finn will earn.
Finn dusts himself off, frowning. “I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel anything.”
Now Rey frowns. “But you’ve felt it before. Something must be clouding your thoughts.”
He shrugs. “Can’t think of what it would be. Regular general stuff, I guess.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
They’re shaded by the branches of a supposed force tree. Poe, as well as his father and all the other inhabitants of Yavin IV had insisted it to be true. To Finn, it looks like any other tree. Maybe older, with roots big enough and wide enough to function as seating. He could sit there for hours, spilling his guts to Rey. What keeps him up at night, what keeps him going. If only those two didn’t seem one in the same.
“No,” he lies. “I should get back to generaling.”
Rey smirks. “Generaling.”
Her smile is so infectious. It breaks through the bedrock of Finn’s bad mood. He finds himself laughing. “Yeah. What else should I call it?”
“Leading. Governing. Ordering-”
“Well, you should be jedi-ing!”
He can pretend here, in this moment, that they’re both fine. That the darkness in Rey’s eyes has faded and his chest isn’t so compressed. He doesn’t remember the last time he was able to breathe, or the last time Rey smiled so wide.
It seems they were happier during the war sometimes. When they still had everyone. When they still had themselves.
“Guess you should get back to it then,” Rey finally says. “Tell Poe I want a turn in his X-Wing later.”
Finn turns to leave, managing one more laugh. “You have the Falcon all to yourself and you want his X-Wing?”
“Not all to myself! Chewie uses it sometimes.”
“Not as often as you.”
Rey says nothing to that. “Whenever you want to talk, I’m here.”
They both want to run. To fly away from all they fought so hard for. How sad are they for wanting to throw away all they earned through blood and sacrifice?
Finn doesn’t answer that question. He simply nods, and takes the long walk back to the newly-established Republic base.
-----
There comes a moment, once the fighting has ceased, the bodies have been counted, and the fires have been put out, that the universe begs Finn to close his eyes.
He’s standing in a medical room, granted temporary sanctuary by sterile white walls and glistening tile. His company consists of an unconscious general, a war hero to some and a mother to the one who put her here (or at least Finn suspects). His other company consists of a freshly-washed pilot, who missed a spot of soot behind his right ear.
And for this moment, Finn is safe. Or as safe as he can be, being hunted by the First Order. And the universe keeps begging and begging for him to obey its one, simple command.
But Finn doesn’t take orders from just anyone anymore. He picks his allies and his fights based on his own gut. And his gut is telling him, not yet .
Instead, he focuses on all the little details that’ll keep his head clear. The stale taste of the air flowing between his teeth. The dull pressure of the stitches alone his jacket digging into his spine. The even duller ache his spine already has.
He’s tired, and Finn hadn’t really realized it until now but the resistance is tired. Jumping from one war to another, trading a sith lord for his grandson. Finn remembers the history lessons he was force-fed as a cadet about the rebellion’s greatest heroes, and he just watched Admiral Ackbar get blasted into space like he was cannon fodder.
In Poe’s rush to Leia’s bedside, he had forgotten to tuck the chain Finn normally sees under his collar beneath his shirt. There’s a ring danging at the end, in desperate need of a polishing. It’s worn like the bolts on too-old cruisers, chipped and speckled with a finish that is barely clinging onto the silver.
Finn wonders who he’s lost. What everyone has lost. And they’ve all lost so much, right when Finn finally found his everything. Now he’s at risk of his world being ripped away from him along with that little everyone has left to cling to of their own.
“We’re not gonna last much longer like this,” Poe pipes up, voice stiff. The fighting is done but the cannon fire at their rear can still be heard. Despite being nearly blown up earlier, there’s a fury in Poe’s eyes. An intense desire to move his ass instead of sitting still.
Finn rubs his thumb over the tiny, teal beacon in his hands, just as antsy. “Surely Holdo has something planned.”
Poe puts an angry hand on his hip. “Yeah, well, she did not care to share that information with me.”
Says the demoted captain, but Finn knows better than to stir up needless conflict. “How much longer do we have?”
On a nearby counter lays an idle datapad, and it takes Poe no longer than two seconds to pull up the ship’s schematics. “An hour less than the last time I checked. That’s when our fuel runs out and they turn us into a fireball.”
The urgency returns, the unknown desire that Finn never remembers wanting. It’s an itch he can’t scratch, a tingle running down his scarred back. Still, he refuses to listen.
Finn clutches the beacon tightly, its edges cutting into his palm. “What can we do?”
Poe catches his gaze and devours Finn’s eagerness. “Whatever they’re tracking us with is gotta be on Snoke’s Destroyer. So we’ll blow it up.”
“Don’t have the fire power.”
Poe nods. “Don’t have the fire power...So we sneak on board. Bust the tracker from the inside.”
Finn shakes his head. “Don’t know how. It’ll be protected by an encrypted firewall of some sort.”
“But you can turn those off. Right?”
Finn winces. “Right. But ...I actually worked sanitation. Which isn't going to help us much.”
If Poe’s jaw sank any lower, it would hit the floor. “You were a janitor? ”
“ Well- ”
“You were a janitor and you lied about it? To the general? ”
“I just wanted to save Rey!” Finn confesses. “I-I wasn’t thinking about the resistance or even really how we were gonna destroy the base. But we still found a way. And I know-I know it was risky. Incredibly. And so many people could’ve died but-”
But Poe isn’t reacting the way Finn thought he would. He’s smiling. No, more than that. He’s... laughing . Laughing at Finn, which, while a bit offensive, is much better than being reprimanded for such selfish actions.
“Wow, that was ballsy! ” Poe grins. Wide . He’s proud. Probably too proud. “No wonder you’ve got such a reputation already.”
Finn smiles nervously. “I think that’s because I was a stormtrooper.”
Poe sobers. “Hey. You’re one of us now. Doesn’t matter who you were. Who’d you here talking bad about you?”
“No one!” Finn swears. “Though I could hardly blame them.”
Poe glares, but his anger is really directed elsewhere. “Well, you’re wrong, and we’re gonna need to find a way to disable their security systems. Think I could brush up with a quick data lesson?”
“Probably not. We’ll need...someone more qualified than us. And capable.”
Poe glares at him again. “We got this buddy. Me, you…” And his eyes sparkle. “We’re gonna save the resistance.”
Something different calls out to Finn. A fluttering in his chest that he dares not push down. Not when Poe is looking upon him as if he were the stars in the sky. “And somebody else.”
“And somebody else! But who?”
-----
Poe is waiting for him in the conference hall, datapad in hand. “How’d training go?”
Finn just rolls his eyes.
“That bad?”
“No,” Finn sighs, taking the pad from him. He absently scans over the docket for the day. Conference with Coruscant. Conference with Naboo. Systems check. Conference with Mon Calamari. He groans.
Poe claps him on the shoulder. “Cheer up, general. Or do you prefer I call you a jedi master from now on?”
“I’m barely a jedi. I can’t even lift a single rock.”
“Rey told me you did the other day?” Poe takes the datapad away from him, relieving Finn momentarily of their duties. But a general of a brand-new Republic is hardly ever off-duty.
“It’s just a rock , though. I...I felt more before. Before Exogol and...Crait.”
Before the fighting just suddenly ended, and they were thrown into a life that traded violence for diplomacy. It’s as if they were tossed right out of a boiling pot of water and into an ice bath.
“It’s probably gonna take some time,” Poe reminds him. “I know you can do more, but you don’t need to stress yourself out about it.”
Wonderful advice coming from a general Finn knows gets less than four hours of sleep a night. “What would I even do with it…?” he asks to no one in particular. Maybe himself. Finn isn’t sure about anything anymore. Not really.
Except for the look Poe is giving him. That classic, warm glint that catches his eye and makes Finn believe, not for long but long enough, that he’s alright. “I’ll do all the talking for the city folk if you got the gungans?”
Finn gives a half-smile. “Deal. Oh, Rey wants to take your X-Wing for a spin later.”
Poe starts dramatically. “She’s got the Falcon! ”
“Yeah, but she wants your X-Wing.”
“Well, she can’t have it!” he huffs, as he always does. He’ll make sure to check its diagnostics before he lets Rey take off.
-----
“Could I do it? Of course I could do it! But I’m a little tied up at the moment.”
A blaster shot just barely misses Maz’ head, causing Finn to jump. He grits his teeth, grimacing as they watch the surprisingly-agile humanoid dodges the firefight around her. An explosion goes off in the background, the hologram’s filter making it look nothing more than a patch of static. She’s a dancer on a crumbling stage, but her gracefulness seems to be keeping her alive.
Or maybe this isn’t her first “union dispute.”
“Ms Kanata, we don’t have any other allies we can call on,” Poe informs her, hands back on his hips. “Takodana isn’t far off from our current course and we can’t afford any trips much further.”
A deep rumble cuts off the audio on Maz’ end as she reloads her blaster. “-f can offer me a ride off this planet, I’ll be glad to help. But one of your flimsy escape pods isn’t going to get the job done! Since I’m guessing this operation isn’t exactly on your general’s agenda.”
Finn notices the quick glance Poe spares for Leia. “It’s not. Where do you suggest we head?”
“You’ll need an Imperial ship!” Maz runs for cover from another patch of static. Finn won’t be able to watch much more of her feed if she’s not more careful. “Go to Canto Bight! You’ll find a ship very easily there.”
Poe leans forward. “Has it been taken over by the First Order?”
“Not quite.” Suddenly, Maz has a jetpack slung over her back. Finn knows better than to question when and where she got it. “Find a decent ship. And make sure to park in the cheap seats from my palace!”
Her nimble fingers type something quickly onto her wrist console, and soon Maz is nothing more than a speck in her hologram.
Poe cuts off the feed. Even his tiniest actions are fueled by a dangerous excitement. “Alright. Steal a ship. Liberate a planet at the same time. Sounds like a good time to me.”
“You are way too happy about all this,” Finn remarks.
Poe just keeps smiling. “About finally having some hope? Never.”
The beacon weighs heavily in Finn’s palm. He stares at it for a moment, the universe once again calling his name.
It pains him to part ways with it, but he slides it back on Leia’s wrist, where it really belongs. “Come back to us, Rey,” he whispers. “Come back to me.”
-----
“What are you doing back here?”
Finn jumps, and immediately bonks his head against the panel of the Falcon’s flooring he recently moved. You would think he could’ve moved it somewhere farther, where perhaps he wouldn’t injure himself. Wincing, he crawls out of the Falcon’s engine compartment. “Just, uh, fixin’ something.”
Rose has her hands on her hips, unconvinced. “Uh huh. Fixing the hyperdrive I just tuned yesterday? I told you, we’re fine for take-off tomorrow.”
“Sorry, I know,” Finn smiles sheepishly. He crawls out of his hiding spot, rubbing his forehead. “I just...wanted to double-check something.”
“Are you doubting the skills of a master mechanic?” she grins.
“Never. No. Absolutely not.”
Rose glances at the panel he’s left out of place. “Can you force that back into place?”
“Can I?” Finn asks, mostly himself. “Uh, y-yeah. Let’s uh…”
He holds out his hand. closing his eyes. Find his center. Trace back his roots.
The light. Rose. A properly-tuned hyperdrive. Coruscant's president being reasonable for once.
The dark. The knot on his head. The breath he still can’t catch. The moment of solitude he still needs. The endless ‘what if?’ scenarios his brain is currently running.
He opens one eye cautiously. The panel hasn’t moved an inch. He sighs, letting his arm fall back to his side.
Rose shifts awkwardly. “Hey, it’s okay. Can you give me a hand putting it back at least?”
The humiliation lingers with Finn for the rest of his day. He tries to engage in small talk with Rose, knowing she only wants to reassure him. Let him know Jannah and her will be safe on their trip tomorrow. That they’ll make sure to bring back as many ex-troopers as they can. They’ve been at it for so long now, trying to save all those stolen children still caught in the crossfire even after the war. The galaxy has not been kind of them, and despite what they fought for they deserve a chance to reform.
“I should go with you. At least on one of these missions,” Finn decides.
“When you can,” Rose smiles. “I don’t even wanna know how full your plate is right now. But it would help, I think.”
“Good. That’s...I’ll see when I can make it.”
“Jannah found records.”
Finn stills, the news hitting him as suddenly as it was given. “What...what kind of records?”
He knows what kind, but he still asks anyway.
“Um, family records. F-For the troops.” Rose brushes a piece of hair out of her face. “We’ve already been able to locate a dozen or so, and we’re gonna return those who want to go back to their home planets safely. On this trip. I was supposed to tell you...general.”
Finn nods, throat burning. “That’s good. That’s really…I’m glad.”
“I can look for yours. Only if you want me to.”
There’s a pit Finn can’t dare peer down into. He’s silent, unable to look into Rose’s eyes as she awaits his answer.
He knows who he is. Finn. General of the newborn Republic. A failing Jedi in training. First Order Deserter. Resistance Hero.
Whoever FN-2185 was before his number doesn’t matter. Hasn’t mattered...until now.
“N-No,” he finally stammers. “I don’t…”
His knees are wobbling. Rose takes his hand, gently leading him down to the floor. Finn sits down heavily, his body weighing a thousand pounds. She sits across from him, still holding his hand.
“I don’t think I can bear that,” he whispers. He wills the tears rising to his eyes to back down. They don’t listen.
Rose runs a thumb along his knuckles. “Okay. It’s okay. Hey now.”
Finn rubs harshly at his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be! Finn, really. I’m sorry for upsetting you-”
“No, I’m glad you told me.” He uncovers his face, hoping his pitiful smile masks the redness of his eyes. “I’m glad you two are reconnecting families...Has Jannah…?”
Rose nods. “Her number was the first one she looked for.”
“And is she...going back?”
“I’m dropping her off, actually, after this mission…” Rose hesitates, pressing her lips firmly together. “And I’m...staying with her.”
Finn blinks. “You...you are?”
“Yeah. We’ve, uh, gotten closer...during all this.”
She’s blushing, her cheeks redder than the hue of the evening sun. Finn feels...something, from her reaction. His heart clenches, his insides twisting, and all the while he is relieved. It’s the strangest thing, and he can’t put a name to it.
He manages a genuine smile for her this time. “I’m really happy for you two.”
Rose beams. “Thank you. W-We’re not leaving the resistance! Or, the Republic. I mean the Republic-”
“Take your time,” He assures her. “You’ve both earned it.”
She squeezes his hand. “You have, too. Time off. You look tired, Finn...You’ve always looked tired to me.”
And he’s always felt so. Nothing has changed since Crait. Since Jakku. Since before everything.
“I’m alright.” He stands, lifting her up with him. “I should get back.”
“What were you really doing in here anyway?” Rose asks, not letting him go.
Finn shakes his head. “Nothing. I’ll catch you before tomorrow.”
Still, Rose holds on. “Look.”
“At what?”
“The panel.”
Finn looks. It’s been shifted, just ever so slightly, out of place again.
“I didn’t…”
“I think you did.”
Rose says it like it’s an accomplishment. Finn does not agree. He pulls away, stepping out of the room before she can reach for him again.
“I gotta go.”
-----
“You two are just trying to run away!”
Finn is holding his hands up, even though it won’t do anything against Rose’s taser. At the very least, he doesn’t want to end up like a crumpled heap like Poe. “We’re not trying to run away! I swear!”
“My sister just died protecting the fleet. And you were running away .”
“That’s not what we're down here for. The First Order is tracking us through lightspeed.”
Rose, distraught, broken, confused, and startled, lowers his taser. “They can...track us through lightspeed?”
Poe flops himself onto a better side than his back. “We’ve only got enough fuel left for one more jump through hyperspace. If we don’t turn off whatever they’re using-”
“Then the resistance is done for.” She lowers her taser, but doesn’t clip it back onto her belt. “How do I know you’re not lying to me?”
“My name is Command- Captain Poe Dameron,” Poe speaks up. “I was on deck when General Organa was hospitalized. This was her last order to me.”
He’s a way better liar than Finn could ever hope to be, but it’s still a big lie to pull off. Rose’s eyes well up again.
“You...you flew with Paige.”
Poe’s face drains. “I did. She was...excellent.”
And she never met him, or at least Poe doesn’t remember meeting her.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Slowly, Rose puts away her taser. “Where are you two heading?”
“Canto Bight,” Finn cuts in before Poe can dig himself a deeper grave. “Have you heard of it?”
Rose scoffs, brushing away a rogue tear. “Yeah, I’ve heard of it. I’ve been once.”
Finn glances as Poe. Poe glances at Finn. They reach a silent verdict.
“We don’t have much time. Do you still know your way around?”
“I doubt much as changed,” she mumbles quietly, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Will you join us?” Poe asks. “The fate of the resistance is in our hands.”
That changes something in Rose. Her eyes, once dark and glassy, are now shining. She takes a few quick breaths, and after a moment nods repeatedly.
“Yes. Yes, of course. I’ll help you.”
-----
He stomps up to the tree. The dumb, stupid tree everyone gives such a hoot about. The tree that looks just like any other tree and stands before it.
His stomach burns, acid rising to his esophagus. This sickness isn’t one he can shake. It’s something he’s been carrying for years now, or, one could argue, since he was taken. Finn has to grit his teeth to keep himself from losing his lunch.
Deep breaths , Rey would say. Center yourself. Calm what’s troubling you.
If only it were that easy. Finn tries so hard to breathe. He’s been trying, but the sounds coming out of him are wheezy, cracked, fragile. Closing his eyes only takes the world away for a moment, and then reality hits back with full force when he opens them.
“A beauty, isn’t she?”
Finn jerks around, and to his shame shields himself. There hasn’t been any danger on this planet for decades, and Poe certainly isn’t going to bring any himself.
Poe takes quick notice of Finn’s frazzled composure. The warm smile on his face fades. “Buddy? Hey now. It’s just me.”
Finn lowers his arms, shaking. “Poe.”
“Yeah, Finn. It’s me. Just me.” Cautiously, Poe steps towards him. “You’re safe. You’re alright.”
“I know,” Finn croaks. He nearly chokes on his own tongue.
Poe is close enough now to touch him, but he leaves Finn’s personal space to himself. “Talk to me, pal. What do you need?”
And then the air vanishes. Finn is choking. Finn can’t breathe . He grasps at his shirt collar, suffocating in the sudden heat crawling up his body.
“Poe-Help me- Please .”
Poe wastes no time. He takes Finn by the shoulders, backing him up to the tree. “Okay. Okay. I’m gonna sit you down now. Right here on this root. It’s just a little way beneath you.”
Finn sinks, and the pressure on his lungs becomes so much worse . Black spots dance around in his vision. He holds onto Poe for dear life.
“Head between your knees. Deep breaths now. Count to three in, then three out. Low now. C’mon buddy.”
But Poe doesn’t understand. This isn’t his body betraying him. This is something else. Something he does not understand.
This is...is this the force?
The world fades into darkness, and from the darkness comes a voice.
Who are you?
Finn takes his first gulp of air in years, then promptly passes out.