Chapter Text
We're gonna get it, get it together, I know
Gonna get it, get it together and float
Gonna get it, get it together and go
Up and up and up
- Up & Up by Coldplay
Rey’s off to search for Luke Skywalker, Finn’s hovering somewhere between healing sleep and coma, and Poe ...( Poe’s forgotten the color of his mother’s eyes).
It’s nothing that he’s aware of, it’s a miniscule detail, unimportant among the grief and exhaustion that permeates the base in the wake of the Starkiller’s destruction. Life goes on, because of course it does, they set one foot in front of the other since by now Poe believes they’ve forgotten how to stop. He sometimes wonders if General Organa yearns for the peace and quiet of a civilian life or if she would feel afloat, drifting in a reality not meant for her.
War is not the only reality Poe’s ever known; he remembers the tranquility of sitting under the old Force tree back home, the sun filtering through the leaves, splashing sprinkles on his skin not yet marked by too many close calls and age. He remembers the soft laughter of his father and the quiet strength of his mother. He remembers peace.
(But he doesn’t remember the color of his mother’s eyes anymore.)
He sits at Finn’s bedside and waits for ... something, he doesn’t know. For Finn to wake up, of course, but maybe for something else as well. He’s afraid to put a name to it, like he’s afraid to go back to his bunk when the night falls. He still goes, but nothing awaits him there but sleepless darkness or nightmares he tries his hardest to forget. He’s Poe Dameron, best pilot of the Resistance, he can’t afford to to be afraid. What’s left of his squad is afraid, he can see it in their faces, the unease lingering behind tired eyes and in the way they leave certain chairs empty during briefings - yet another reminder of how much, how many they lost. And when his squad is afraid, and the ground staff and most of the people running the Resistance, he can’t afford to be afraid as well. People depend on him.
They’ve destroyed the Starkiller, yes, but it won’t matter in the long run. They've prolonged their survival, but they didn’t secure it. Not yet. Hux is still out there. Phasma is. A lot more Stormtroopers than he can count, and ... he doesn’t want to think about who else is out there.
He doesn’t have to think about anything once Finn wakes up for real. Finn is gasping for breath, trying to walk on shaky legs and cursing and planning to go after Rey, sometimes all at once, but it only means he’s alive; that there’s one person less Poe has to be afraid of losing and it makes his heart ache in a way he’s not entirely too sure is a good sign.
(He doesn’t remember that the torn jacket on Finn’s nightstand in medical once belonged to him.)
Finn asks if he’s okay and of course he says he is. He’s alive after all. No one tried to sever his spine, no one tried to turn him to the Dark Side. Pilot’s are always okay because if they’re not, then they’re most likely dead, shot down from an unforgiving sky or turned into dust in the uncaring night of space.
So he does what he always does; he helps the General putting strategies together, he leads his squad into fights, jokes with Pava, assists Snap working on his figther’s engine, cleans BB-8. He eats and breathes and walks and talks ... and dreams. Not often, sleep is something he not actively tries to forego -- he can’t fly on no sleep for too long after all -- but it happens none the less. Too often. Sleep is ... hard. It’s not even that he’s surprised who he sees in his dreams, he expected nothing else. He’s seen enough, is realist enough to know that torture follows you home, it’s nothing you can get rid of with a shake of your head or sheer force of will. And he’s endured worse than most on the base.
What really unsettles him is the feeling when he wakes up from one of these nightmares. The darkness around him always lingers for a while, and once he’s got himself under control again -- breathe, Poe, in, out, you know the drill, the shaking will be over soon -- he feels like something is ... less right than before, but he can’t put his finger on it.
(He doesn’t remember how he first met BB-8 anymore.)