Chapter Text
The air’s too dry to be breathable.
When he wakes, the sand is burning his skin, the straps of his uniform are too tight, and Poe can barely breathe. Poe wrenches himself out of the pod like he’s about to shatter. His fingers are shaking. There’s sand as far as the eye can go, and Poe laughs deliriously — he’s alive, he’s alive, he crash-landed in the deserts of Jakku and for some reason he hasn’t been killed on impact. He escaped from the First Order, and he lived.
God, wait till Pava hears this. Poe’s smiling so hard his face cracks. Then he coughs, the heat getting to him. Water, he thinks, water and then getting off of Jakku, then —
Then he remembers, like hyperspace has hit without warning — BB-8. The mission. Finn.
Finn. “Finn?” Poe yells into the bracing heat, “Finn!”
There’s no response. It’s like the sand is absorbing his voice. Poe’s voice cracks, he cups his hands around his mouth. “Finn!”
It doesn’t matter that the First Order is most certainly looking for him. He needs to find Finn, he needs to find him — Poe’s failed too much already. They must have captured BB-8 by now. He’s already betrayed the Resistance, and that’s on him, no matter how deeply Kylo Ren had to dig to find it.
Poe slogs through the sand, the desert slinking up to his knees, the heat cutting into his skin. He absently reaches up to adjust his jacket against the heat, but his fingers grasp at nothing. Of course. That’s gone, too.
Poe walks, leaving the smoking escape pod behind. There’s nothing left for him in that pod. All he needs to focus on is Finn.
“FN-2187!” A hurried phrase, hands adjusting to the cannons.
“FN-21what? I’m not calling you that.” Poe’s fingers flicking through the TIE fighter controls, easy like breathing. “FN, huh? I’m calling you Finn.”
Poe didn’t even have to turn around. He could feel Finn’s smile, bright like stars. “Finn. I like that.”
His fingers are shaking, it’s too hot. Finn, he chants like a mantra. BB-8. The mission. Finn.
Poe doesn’t find him. He slumps in the middle of some tiny village, far east from where he landed. The sun’s burned his skin a bright red, and he hasn’t had water in hours.
“Finn,” he croaks as villagers converge on him, there’s something soft under his head, there’s something cool trickling into his mouth. His mind is already clouding over — the excitement from escaping, limping through the searing heat — "Finn. BB-8. The — the …”
He sleeps. He can’t remember much else.
**
When he wakes up, the village has been watching him like he’s a monster. He’s not surprised — his skin has flamed to a bright, angry red. He’s covered in blood (Ren), sweat, and he feels like he’s just been gunned down with a blaster.
Poe tries to smile. He doesn’t think it helps.
The village speaks Basic, fortunately, and he’s able to talk his way out of it. Resistance , he says, and the fear melts away and is replaced with a deep-rooted awe. He thinks of how the village took him in and kept him alive, though he could’ve been First Order. It’s a naive kindness that he rarely sees in the universe anymore.
It’s like walking out on everything you’ve ever known, lugging a dead-weight pilot with you. You weren’t dead weight , one side of his brain argues. The other half aches — Finn.
He wonders if Finn is dead by now. No one can survive on Jakku for long, not with no contact and no water.
Poe asks if they have a plane, a fighter, anything to get off Jakku. I have to get back to General Organa , he says, proud as he can. The villager’s eyes widen like he’s spoken a holy language, and they direct him to the village’s shoddy looking fighter pod, barely holding together. It’s probably a relic, but Poe can fly anything.
He gets in, straps in. The village has gathered to watch him depart, sending kind words and well-wishes in accented Basic. His hands hesitate over the controls.
I have to report to the General. I’ve already lost too much time.
I have to find Finn.
It would be so much easier to search in a pod than on foot, he could scan the area so much more quickly …
His hands curl in on themselves. His nails bite angry lines into his palms. The Resistance. General Organa is counting on me.
Priorities.
Poe flicks a few switches on, and then he’s taken off — off of Jakku, off into open space. Here, it feels like home, the heat is gone, he can breathe again.
As he flickers into hyperspace, he thinks about that star-bright smile of Finn’s, and he feel his heart drop to his stomach. This almost feels like a betrayal.
**
The look on General Organa’s face reminds him so much of his mother’s, Poe wants to collapse into her arms, wants to sob like he has water to spare. Instead, he stands as tall as he can.
“Permission to speak freely, ma’am.”
General Organa stares at him like she can’t decide between decking him or sending him straight to the MedBay. “Just speak, Dameron. You fly in here, missing for days, looking half-dead. You’ve put this base into a frenzy, looking for you, and you want permission to talk?”
“I … ” The shame burns through him, dark and clear. “Kylo Ren knows about the map, General. He used the Force...” Poe doesn’t miss the way the lines around the General’s eyes tighten, but he doesn’t say anything.
“That’s alright. I don’t think there’s anything that can stand in the way of the First Order. Of Kylo Ren.” General Organa straightens, “We’ll have to double our efforts, then. And your BB unit?”
If Poe had the chance to die at this very moment, he would have traded every credit he owned to take it. “BB-8 … I had to send it away. The First Order attacked Jakku while I was still talking to Lor San Tekka.”
“So there’s a chance that the First Order doesn’t have the map yet.” The General straightens, and Poe catches the steely glint in her eye. “There’s no reason to look so glum, Dameron. There’s always hope. That’s why the Resistance exists.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Poe doesn’t know what to feel. His emotions are warring, a vicious turmoil.
“Is there anything else, Poe?” Her voice is uncharacteristically soft. “If not, get to the MedBay. You’re about to collapse.”
“I … I didn’t escape alone,” Poe says. “There was a stormtrooper. He helped me escape. We flew to Jakku, crash-landed there. I — ” Poe feels tears welling in the base of his throat, and this is ridiculous, he’s crying in front of his commanding officer, “I don’t think he survived, ma’am.”
There’s a warm hand on his shoulder. “We’ll honor his memory, then. We won’t forget him – he kept the best pilot in the Resistance alive, and that’s no small feat.”
“Finn. His name was Finn.”
General Organa squeezes his shoulder tightly. Poe bows his head, and tries to hide his face.
**
He wakes up in the Bay. Jessika’s leaning so close, her hair tickles his face. He’s aching all over, and when he looks down, there are bruises blooming up his arms.
“You lost the jacket,” Pava says matter-of-factly, “which is a damn shame, because I specifically put in a request to the General to keep it after you die.” Then she beams, and cheerfully smacks Poe around the head.
“Damn , Pava, I’m still recovering from a near-death experience — ”
“Don’t do that again,” Jess says, talking over him. “And shut up, Dameron. If you die, that means I’ll have to be the squadron leader, and we all know how badly that’ll end.”
Poe is still in a state where he can’t comprehend everything at once. It’s all blurred: guilt from the mission failure, grief from Finn, and right now, a sheer relief. Jessika stares at him like she’s expecting an answer.
“Not planning to,” Poe says. “Besides. I have things to finish.”
(Poe does not think of bright smiles and bloody helmets and of I need a pilot! Jessika talks too much and too loudly, and for once, he’s grateful.)
**
Going back into the air again is the best medicine Poe will ever get, he’s sure. The second he straps in, it’s like he can breathe again — he’s home.
“Check in,” Poe calls over the comm. As the pilots reel off their color and position, he turns around, ready to tell BB-8 to stay still, buddy, you’re here to keep me alive . But the astro-droid compartment is empty, and the pang in his chest feels like a wound.
The last time he was in a plane, he didn’t have BB-8, either. But he wasn’t alone. That made all the difference.
He wishes this were a test run — or at the very least, a patrol run — but they’ve been tipped off of BB-8 being on Takodana, of all places. It’s something, but flying without his unit doesn’t feel right.
“You’re a big deal now, buddy,” Poe tells the empty air. "We're running all over the place, looking for you." There’s no binary to answer him, though Jessika does respond: “You talkin’ about me, boss?”
“Kriffin’ hell, I’m taking her off the team,” Poe mutters, and he readies his squadron for takeoff.
**
Blasting the First Order to hell is fun. Watching the way the fighters scatters under his blasts, the way that the controls seem to melt under his hands and respond purely to his will — it’s amazing, it’s like coming back to life.
Poe hears the screams and whoops of his pilots, and he hopes that one of them has hit Ren. There are TIE fighters everywhere, like stars in the sky, and he ducks and loops and shoots like there’s no tomorrow. He thinks he remembers screaming.
He tries his best to hit the TIEs, and doesn’t concentrate his efforts on all the ‘troopers below, a patchy sea of white. Poe tries not to think about what this means.
At one point, the First Order retreats, but Poe can tell easily that it’s a tactical one – Ren clearly hadn’t been losing, but Poe can’t help but accept this as a win. His squad is cheering over the comms, and Wexley’s swearing up a storm, Pava laughing with him.
It’s a good day, and as Poe leaps into hyperspace, his heart feels a little lighter.
**
Poe’s just stepped out of the plane, peeling off his helmet and handing it to an attendant, and a orange-and-white blur barrels into him, chanting [FRIEND-POE FRIEND-POE FRIEND-POE].
“Buddy!” Poe laughs, all delight. He kneels, and throws his arms around BB-8. “Oh, I …”
He never finishes his sentence. Poe looks up, and the world slows.
He’s standing there, unsure, as if he can’t understand what’s going on. He’s wearing Poe’s jacket like it was made for him, and —
Before Poe knows what he's doing, he’s up, sprinting towards Finn (Finn!), and Finn catches him. He holds onto him like there’s nothing else in the world that will anchor him, and for the first time, the weight on Poe’s chest lifts.
“You’re alive,” Poe breathes. His hands are fisted in the jacket, and he stares at Finn hungrily, almost unable to comprehend.
“You’re alive!” Finn responds. “I thought you died on Jakku!”
“No, no,” Poe rambles, and he talks on and on, about how he survived, about climbing out of the escape pod, and then he suddenly remembers. “...hey. You’re wearing my jacket.”
“Oh,” Finn says, and hurries to take it off, and Poe quickly says “No, no, keep it. It suits you.”
And it does. It looks like it was made for Finn. When Poe looks into his eyes, Finn looks so surprised, Poe’s heart aches.
I missed you, he wants to say, I’m glad you’re alive, I don’t think I could live with myself if you weren’t, he wants to say. Instead, Poe bites down on his lip, hard.
Instead, he breathes Finn in, and for all that’s going wrong for the Resistance, it’s alright again.