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"Well, I think I'm for bed," Rey declares tipsily as she stands.
Finn instinctively rises to help, only to be warded off as she flings out a hand – insistently showing that she's fine as she nearly smacks him. Poe hides a grin behind his drink, which Rey apparently takes as a reminder. She bends down, carefully, and takes up the last shot on the table.
The look of awe on Finn's face as she knocks it back is hilarious.
"Early meeting with the General, you know," Rey explains. She forms her hand into a fist and punches it into Finn's shoulder, smiling up at him with shining eyes. "I will see you …" she trails off, looking for all the world like she thought she had something more to add. She bites her lip and finishes, "Tomorrow?"
"Yes – I mean, yeah." Finn shrugs and puts his hands on his hips, trying to play off the stunned expression he has to know he wears around her. "I mean, if you want. I'll be around. Doing Resistance stuff."
Rey grins and gives him a salute, stumbling off with grace only a Force user can manage. The lightsaber of Luke Skywalker swings on her hip and Poe can't help but watch it, an ominous tightness in his stomach at the sight. He wouldn't wish that thing on anyone.
"You alright there?" Poe asks when Finn just stares after her, failing to remember that they're here for a celebration.
Finn startles and all but jumps back down into his seat, shoulders hunched. Poe doesn't even bother to restrain the laugh that comes out of him, cracking against the hangar walls. Evac is nearly complete. Most equipped is boxed, bundled, or otherwise packed away, and the majority of the Resistance is already berthed on cruisers headed out of the system. The base is left with a skeleton crew of people like Poe who just don't know when to quit and brass who have too much honor to get out ahead of the danger, like General Organa.
Though, when Poe thinks on it, it's possible Organa is the definition of someone who doesn't know how to quit. And maybe it's the part of him that grew up on stories about her from his parents, but he wishes she could. He wants it for the galaxy, for himself. But he also wants it for her.
"Poe," Finn starts nervously. He's fiddling with his drink when Poe looks back at him, arms across his chest and eyebrow cocked at the younger man. "What do you think about Rey?"
Poe drops the cocky pose to lean forward, elbows on their rickety little table.
"I think if you don't make a move, I will."
Finn's eyes widen in shock.
"You wouldn't."
Poe admits to himself he probably wouldn't. Rey is something else entirely, out of his league and probably out of the next league after that.
"I would."
"You wouldn't," Finn insists. He tugs on his jacket, pointedly. "You're a better man than that."
"Sounds like exactly what a girl like Rey deserves."
Finn makes a strangled sound and Poe drops his head, laughing at him. Probably time to stop teasing the youngster.
"She's special, though," Finn says. "It's not just the Force."
Poe nods. He doesn't know the girl well yet. With all the drama going on, he doesn't know that he ever will. It's stupid to mourn something that hasn't even happened, but he feels a pang at the idea of never knowing her. Skies, he gets maudlin when he drinks. Poe shakes off the thought, downing another swig of his Correllian brandy.
"Do you really think a guy like me would ever have a chance with a girl like her?"
"You mean a scavenger?"
Finn rolls his eyes at him.
"I'm a stormtrooper, man. And she's, I don't know what she is."
"Special," Poe repeats. He reaches out to clap a hand onto Finn's shoulder. "I told you. Do it or I will."
Finn doesn't buck up under the vague threat of romantic competition. Instead his eyes search Poe's.
"She's leaving tomorrow, you know. Going off to find Skywalker."
Poe bites his tongue. He'd tell Finn to get the hell up and go after her, take a chance and kiss the girl before she leaves to find her destiny, but the problem is that, well, Finn doesn't seem drunk enough to actually do it.
"I don't know who she'll be when she comes back," Finn admits.
Poe raises his eyebrows at that. He knows he doesn't want to be anywhere near the Force. Learned that from the Resistance, from his parents before, from all the stories and from the last few months, standing at the General's side. What Ren became, he can't say that's not in Rey. He wishes he understood it all enough to say it couldn't happen.
"Who'll you be?" he asks instead.
Finn looks startled at the question.
"What?"
"Got you a name. Got you a jacket," Poe says, gesturing with his glass. "Time for a mission."
Finn starts to smile.
"What did you have in mind?"
Poe leans forward.
"So, about that Phasma character..."