Chapter Text
It took 16 days for Finn to be discharged from the medical centre on D’Qar.
Later, he would be told that he first woke up three days after the destruction of Starkiller, but that it took until day five before he reached any kind of lucidity. For Finn himself, this entire period was a blur, a swirling mix of searing pain and drug-fuelled fever dreams. He had very little idea what was real – the line between a cold cloth being pressed to his head and his face pressing into the snow of Starkiller was nothing more than a flicker in his mind. He understood enough to know that Rey was safe, if not present, and that he was apparently in no immediate danger. This reassurance was of little comfort to him when he woke in the middle of the night, sweating and gasping for breath, still hearing the sound of clashing lightsabers.
By day six he was capable of holding an actual conversation with a doctor.
“I cannot overstate how lucky you were,” said Major Kalonia, her tone severe, almost as if she blamed him for getting in the way of a lightsaber. “Your spine was unharmed, and the blade cauterised the wound enough to stop you bleeding out on the spot. If it had been an inch to the right, or a half inch deeper, you’d have been dead before you hit the ground.”
He wasn’t sure if this was an attempt to be comforting, but he appreciated the blunt honesty. Her prognosis was equally pointed – two more weeks of bedrest and observation, limited strenuous activity for another two weeks after that, and an arduous-sounding schedule of physical therapy that sounded to Finn like it could be indefinite.
Privately, Finn wondered just how long they expected him to be staying on D’Qar. To be fair, it wasn’t as if this had been discussed at any point before his injury – between the urgency of launching the attack on Starkiller and his own desperation to save Rey, there hadn’t been much time to talk about whether he was joining the Resistance on the mission, or joining the Resistance. Truthfully, he had no idea what he wanted. Since that night on Jakku, he had yet to plan more than one move ahead, and even the one-step plans he had kept getting disrupted by everyone around him.
He was almost grateful for pain in his back that grew every few hours between bouts of painkillers, a slow, throbbing ache that seemed to spread to the tips of his toes. The ward, a cramped blue room with four beds and an array of medical machinery, was extremely light on other distractions, as he was the only patient present.
At one of the first painkiller top-ups after he woke up, Finn asked the medical droid attending to him about this.
“All other patients with Starkiller-related injuries were released while you were still unconscious” the droid explained.
“So...everyone else survived then? Apart from Han, they all made it?” Even to his drug-dulled brain, this seemed strange.
“Negative,” replied the droid dispassionately. “All crew with severe injuries resulting from downed or disabled X-Wings were on Starkiller at the time of detonation. Nineteen casualties were reported. Seven pilots returned, two with minor injuries which treated the same day.”
Finn felt a wave of panic wash over him.
“Do you know which of the pilots survived?!”
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It took 8 days for the names to be added to the D’Qar Wall of Valour.
Poe Dameron stood alone, contemplating the new lines, laser-carved into a simple black stone block. It stood in a quiet corridor in the main base leading to a number of storage rooms, far away from the soldiers’ quarters and the mess. The idea was to allow soldiers to deal with the wall in their own way – they didn’t need to see it every day, and could reasonably hope to have a few moments to themselves at it if they preferred to approach it privately.
Poe would have had a list of names carved into the wall of every room in the base, if he could. He understood on some objective level why people would run from the pain, or want to release it in small bursts, but he couldn’t imagine any way to approach death but head-on. He had lost enough people early enough in his life that he couldn’t dance around the topic. Even the name, “Wall of Valour”, felt euphemistic and insincere. But he still came here every few days to force his mind to stay sharp. Life with the Resistance meant facing danger daily, and Poe wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, but a constant reminder of that helped him to focus on why their mission was so important. If it wasn’t these names, it would be countless others, wiped out by the First Order in their maniacal quest for control.
His eyes lingered on the latest names to be added, the carving fresh and raw. Han, who Poe had barely known but who had been a friend to his parents. Ello, whose dying screams had been broadcast for everyone in his squadron to hear. The entirety of Cobalt Squadron – five names neatly lined up, together even in death. He recited the 19 new names mentally, burning them into the wall in his mind. It was for them that the Resistance had to succeed.
He felt, rather than heard, someone approaching behind him. He turned to see Jessika Pava walking slowly towards him.
“You need a minute?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, I’m good.” There was no artifice here – he grieved for his lost comrades as much as anyone, but had no intention of letting that slow him down. He did, however, understand that his approach to loss was not how most people reacted.
“What about you?” he asked.
Jessika smiled wearily. “Not good at all. But here we are. This is what being in the Resistance means. I’ll be OK.”
Poe put an arm around her and squeezed her tightly. “I’m here, if you need to talk. Or drink.”
She reached up to pat his hand. “Thank you.”
They stood for a few moments in companionable silence, looking at the wall, lost in their own thoughts. Eventually, Jessika closed her eyes and shook herself slightly, as if consciously waking herself up.
“I was looking for you to tell you – Goos wants you in the hangar. He’s working on Black One, needs your input.”
“Thanks,” said Poe. “I’ll go find him now. Catch you later.” He turned and started to walk away, but Jessika’s voice pulled him up short.
“Oh, and I ran into Major Kalonia. That Stormtrooper you’ve been trying to see, he’s cleared for visitors.”
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It took 20 steps to get from Finn’s bed to the wall at the far side of the ward, and the same back.
On day 8, when he was first allowed out of bed to try it, he felt like he’d never walked before. His legs were like jelly, his back ached with each breath, and he could barely lift his left arm, which hung limply by his side. But days of staring into space, lost in his own head, had Finn desperate to do something to get himself moving, so he pushed himself through. His first trip to the far wall and back took 3 minutes, his second even longer as his muscles tried to adjust to being used again.
“I would advise against a third attempt,” warned the medical droid supervising him.
Finn ignored this, turned, and started across the room again, slowly putting one foot in front of the other, stopping between each step to steady himself. Reaching the wall and turning, he gritted his teeth and pushed himself back, desperately trying to make it to his own bed, which suddenly seemed to be miles away. He got to the end of his bed just as his legs started to buckle under him – hauling himself up onto the bed, he lay still for a few seconds, sweating and gulping for air.
“Nice work,” came a familiar voice from the door of the room. Finn rolled over to confirm that he wasn’t just hearing what he wanted to hear, and a massive grin broke across his face.
“Poe! Man, is it good to see you.”
“Same to you,” said Poe, walking across the room and grabbing Finn by the arm, helping him to get into a sitting position on the bed.
“Easy! Ahhh – OK, I’m good, I’m good,” said Finn, wincing as he adjusted the pillow behind him to support his back without pressing against the still-raw wound on his back.
Poe perched on the side of the bed, letting Finn get settled, beaming at him. Finn, once he was properly settled, took this in and snickered.
“It’s that good to see me, is it?”
“It really is. For a few days there, it looked like you weren’t going to make it. And now you’re out of bed and walking again – it’s incredible.”
Finn looked away and shrugged. “It would be more incredible if I could walk a few metres without nearly falling over.”
“You will, soon,” said Poe. “For now, it’s just good to see you alive and awake. I was starting to think I’d never get the chance to pay you back – I’m pretty sure I owe you my life twice now. We’d have died trying to take out Starkiller if you guys hadn’t blown a hole for us.”
Finn was almost sure he was blushing. “It was nothing. Really, that part of the plan just…kinda happened. And it got Han killed.”
The smile faded from Poe’s face, but his gaze didn’t waver. “He knew what he was risking when he went up there. He’d happily have traded his life to save this base – and to save General Organa.”
It occurred to Finn that he had no idea how widely known the circumstances of Han’s death were – that he had been stabbed in cold blood by his own son. He kept his eyes on the wall, not sure how much he could say, or how much he wanted to.
Poe seemed to sense that he had strayed into territory Finn would rather not cover, and slid off the bed onto his feet.
“Listen, I have to get to work – in fact, I’m technically at work now and really not meant to be here. But I’ll come back tomorrow, if that’s OK with you?”
Finn looked back up at him. “Yes, absolutely! Please, definitely come back. Come back as much as you like. I’m going insane in here.” After a few seconds he realised how this might sound. “And also it’s very good to see you,” he added, lamely.
Poe smiled. “Good to hear,” he said. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Don’t push yourself too hard.”
And with that, he was gone. Finn fully intended to ignore his advice and try another few laps once he got his breath back, but he quickly slipped into a sound sleep, body exhausted from even the minor exertion.
When he woke a few hours later, Major Kalonia was examining a report left by the medical droid.
“This is very positive,” she said. “I know you must feel awful, but the fact that you’re strong enough to stand means we can progress to more active treatments.”
‘More active’ turned out to be code for ‘extremely painful and invasive’, but when he woke up on his ninth day in the medical centre, he found himself able to properly lift his left arm for the first time, and he decided that he’d take whatever pain Kalonia could dish out if it meant an improvement in his condition.
He was looking forward to an appearance from Poe to break up his otherwise dreary day, but was surprised to find that his next visitor was a young blonde woman with her hair pulled into two tight buns, who he vaguely recognised from the war room meeting before the Starkiller assault. Striding over to his bed, she grabbed his hand and shook it firmly.
“Lieutenant Kaydel Ko. Pleasure to meet you properly,” she said brusquely.
“Likewise,” he said, thrown by the formality.
She noted his discomfort and smiled. “Call me Kaydel. And don’t worry, this isn’t an official meeting – well, not really. Admiral Statura asked me to come and see you.”
“That…that sounds pretty official,” said Finn, mind racing. Was this where they tried to press-gang him into service? Or kicked him out of their hospital and off their base? Or worse, was this the part where they ominously told him that he ‘knew too much’?
“It’s more pre-official,” she said. “He wanted you to have a heads-up. You’re due for discharge in 7 days, if your health allows for it. At that point, we’ll need you to make a choice. If you’re willing, we’d like you to stay here and join up properly. Your experience and inside knowledge of the Order would be invaluable to the Resistance. However, if you choose to leave, we can arrange safe passage out of here and away from the First Order, as a thanks for your service and assistance.”
Finn took this in, saying nothing. She seemed content to let the silence hang. After a few seconds he asked, “What does that mean, exactly? If I sign up?”
“It means you get a room, board, and a small monthly stipend. You accept that you’re part of an army, subject to training requirements and a code of discipline, and part of a command structure. You follow orders, and you understand that the Resistance will ask you to risk your life.”
Her voice softened a little as she continued. “Honestly, in practice, I don’t know what else it means right now. Things are chaotic around here at the moment. The assault on Starkiller saved the base and kept the Resistance alive, but we suffered heavy casualties. Right now we need more people basically everywhere – we’re desperate for money, bodies, supplies. We could use all the help we can get.”
She gave him a wry smile. “I know that must not sound like much of a deal, but I hope you’ll consider it. I’ll be around if you have any questions – ask one of the medical droids to send me a message. You’ll have until your discharge to make your mind up – Admiral Statura and I will come to see you then.”
She turned and started to walk out, but turned back as she reached the door. “Finn?” she said, sounding much more human. “A lot of us would be dead right now if it weren’t for you. No matter what you decide, I just wanted to say…thank you. Thank you so much.”
And with that, she left before he even had a chance to awkwardly demur. He spent the next hour lost in thought, turning her words over and over in his head. He was still off in his own world when Poe arrived, clutching a bag. Seeing his distraction, Poe dropped the bag and pulled up a chair, listening attentively as Finn explained what Lt. Ko had told him.
“So what’s the alternative?” Poe asked when Finn had finished. “Hitch a ride to the furthest planet we can get you to, and hope for the best?”
Finn gave a non-committal shrug. “I was going to, before. On Takodana. Just jump on a ship and get as far as I could, as fast as I could.”
Poe took this in, choosing his next words carefully.
“Well, you were worried about the First Order hunting you down when you helped me escape. Since then, you’ve led the Resistance to their strongest base, killed their troops, helped take down their strongest warrior, and made sure the whole thing blew right the hell up. I feel like they might take an interest in finding you, even all the way out in Wild Space.”
Finn couldn’t deny that this made sense. “You think I’d be safe here?” he asked, uncertainly.
“Oh, no,” Poe said, kindly. “Absolutely not. The odds are still incredibly high that they’ll kill you here.”
Finn stared back at him in slight shock, clearly not appreciating Poe’s go-to flippancy in the face of death. Feeling a little bit bad, Poe reached out and put his hand on Finn’s shoulder, rubbing it gently to try to calm him down.
“Look, I know that’s not the answer you want to hear. And I’m sorry for being blunt. But look at it this way – if you stay, you’ve got a whole load of people right here who will shelter you, protect you, and fight by your side. There’s people here who’d lay down their lives to save you. I know where I’d rather be if the First Order came knocking.”
Finn’s face began to relax a little, and he gave a slight nod of appreciation for the sentiment.
“And besides,” Poe smirked, “if you stay, there’s a good chance you’ll get to blow up a few more of their bases first.”
Finn was now caught between a smile and a glower. Poe gave his shoulder one last squeeze and a smile that he hoped treaded closer to ‘encouraging’ than ‘obnoxious’.
After a few moments of silence, Finn spoke again. “’Lay down their lives for me’?” he asked, a deep layer of sarcasm under the question. “Really?”
Poe shrugged and grinned back. “Look, I never said it was Plan A…”
Finn laughed, and then caught himself as the movement jerked his back. He winced, adjusting his position in a futile attempt to relieve the pain. Poe looked on with sympathy, before reaching down to grab the bag he had brought with him.
“Well, here,” he said. “Some distractions to keep you occupied while you plot your future.”
Pulling out a small, circular disc with black and white markings on the top, he placed it on the locker next to Finn’s bed. He pressed a few buttons on the side of the disc and an array of holographic aliens appeared across the board.
“Dejarik!” Finn exclaimed.
“You’ve played?” Poe asked, raising an eyebrow.
Finn gave him a gentle shove with his good arm. “Yeah, of course. We were allowed to do some things other than conditioning, training and saluting, you know.” Off Poe’s continued sceptical look, he added sheepishly, “I mean, we were allowed as long as they helped develop cognitive skills and tactical thinking…”
“And there it is,” said Poe with a grin. “There’s also this.”
He took out an earpiece and a small data drive. “Put it on,” he said, holding out the earpiece to Finn.
Confused, Finn slid it on. Poe hit a button on the data drive, and music started playing from the earpiece, brilliantly clear. Dozens of drums, with what sounded like a hundred voices chanting over them, joyful and defiant, laying out a rhythm that Finn could feel through every inch of his body. He closed his eyes, and for a few glorious moments he was out of the medical wing, far from D’Qar, utterly immersed in the beat and the music. He opened his eyes and saw Poe looking at him, waiting for a reaction.
“THAT’S AWESOME!” he said, unconsciously shouting over the music. Poe laughed and reached out to gently take the earpiece off; Finn winced as he realised what he had done. “I mean…that’s awesome,” he said in a more normal tone.
“Glad to hear it,” said Poe. “It’s a recording of traditional music from Yavin-4 – that’s where I grew up. I’ve done my share of time grounded in this place. I thought you might find it useful.”
“It’s perfect – thank you,” said Finn.
Poe shrugged and turned back to the gameboard. “C’mon – I’ve got a few minutes before I have to get back. You can show me how Stormtroopers play dejarik.”
The next few days passed far more pleasantly for Finn. His physical condition improved rapidly under Major Kalonia’s care, and the drudgery of the medical wing was broken up with frequent visits from Poe, who made an effort to call in at least once a day. Sometimes they played dejarik, or Poe filled him in on news of the outside world – for the most part, the situation remained unchanged. No news had filtered back from Rey either, though Poe reassured Finn that he’d pass on anything he heard as soon as he heard it – for now, all anyone knew was that she had gone on some kind of Jedi spirit quest to find Luke Skywalker. Finn took some comfort in knowing she was alright, though he would have given anything for her to still be on D’Qar.
More often, Poe entertained Finn with stories from his past, growing up the son of Rebel heroes, getting in and out of trouble on Yavin-4, learning to fly, joining the New Republic army and then the Resistance. Finn suspected heavy editorialising on Poe’s part, but he enjoyed imagining the cocky, confident pilot sitting in front of him as a nervous rookie, immobilising half a dozen friendly ships with a catastrophic misfiring of his Y-wing’s ion cannon.
For his part, Finn wasn’t able to contribute much – his childhood and early training held far less in the way of wacky misadventures. Poe seemed to understand this, though, and was happy to listen to whatever Finn was willing to share without probing too much. Every now and then Finn caught a flicker of reaction on Poe’s face at the particularly strict elements of the rules he had grown up under – at the swift punishments meted out for any hint of disobedience or frivolity, and the tendency for any troopers guilty of these to disappear without warning. The more that Finn talked about it, the more alien it felt. Seeing it reflected in someone else’s face made it somehow both more awful and more distant, like a story that had happened to someone else. He found himself steering away from the worst elements of it, not wanting to see the quickly-disguised horror and pity in Poe’s eyes. If Poe noticed that he was holding back, however, he said nothing.
The one topic Finn steered particularly clear of was his plans for after his discharge. On the his 15th night in the ward, though, he bit the bullet and asked Poe something that had been building in his mind for a week.
“Why do you stay here?”
“With the Resistance?” Poe asked. Finn nodded, and Poe sat back in his chair, legs propped up on Finn’s bed, and considered the question. “Because I think it’s the right thing to do. I wish I had a better answer than that, but honestly, that’s it. The First Order are a threat to the whole galaxy; if there’s something I can do to help stop them, I want to do it.”
“So do I,” said Finn. “But I’m just…scared, I guess.”
“You’d be crazy if you weren’t. But you learn to deal with it.”
Finn shook his head. “Not scared of dying. Well, not just that. I’m just…I just escaped from being a number. From being a cog in a machine, and following orders, and everything that came with that. I don’t know if I want to go back to it. I don’t know if I want to give up my life again when I just got it back.”
“I understand that. And I wouldn’t blame you at all if you left. But this is a good cause, Finn. We’re fighting to protect people. I’m not going to tell you the Resistance is perfect, but we don’t massacre civilians, and we don’t annihilate planets.”
“Which is a plus,” offered Finn.
Poe nodded mock-seriously. “Yeah, no, we’re adding that to the brochure.” He thought for a few more seconds, and spoke more heavily. “I guess…I don’t know what else I could do. I don’t know if I could live in a galaxy with the First Order and not want to fight them. And maybe it’s futile. Maybe we’re fighting a war we can’t win – hell, maybe the next superweapon they build will be the one that finally wipes us out. I’d still want to try. I’d want to know in my last few seconds that I threw everything I had at the bastards; that there might be someone alive because I stood in the Order’s way, even once. Wouldn’t you?”
Finn felt a swell of admiration. “Now that, they should put in the brochure.”
Poe snorted, clearly taking this for sarcasm, and gave Finn’s leg a kick. “Whatever. Just promise me you’ll think about it, OK? And besides,” he added with a smirk, “I’d miss you. I’ve gotten used to having you around to talk at.”
Finn snorted and gave him a gentle kick back. They lapsed into a comfortable silence for a few moments, before Poe stood and stretched out his back.
“I need to get some sleep if I’m going to be in any way functional tomorrow. Whatever you decide, I’ll support you, but if you do go, make sure you come by the hangar and say goodbye first, alright?”
Finn nodded. To his surprise, Poe leant down and pulled him in for a hug, carefully avoiding the large bandage that still covered the left side of his back. After a moment, he reached up and hugged Poe back.
“Sleep tight,” said Poe, releasing him and stepping back. “I’ll see you tomorrow either way.”
Finn, however, had made his mind up. He had the soundest sleep of his time in the medical wing, needing to be woken by Major Kalonia the following morning when she came to do a final round of tests.
“Full mobility,” she said approvingly as she manipulated his shoulder gently around. “And this wound is nearly fully healed.” She pressed a few buttons on the scanner next to his bed, and flicked through the readout with a hint of a smile on her face. “I’d say you’re ready to leave.”
Finn broke into a massive grin and grabbed the Major into a bear-hug. She looked startled, but chuckled as he let her go. “Most people just say ‘Thank you’,” she said.
“Finn.” A voice from the doorway cut across them both. Finn turned to see Admiral Statura watching him, Lieutenant Ko by his side. “It’s good to see you up and moving.”
“Thank you, Admiral,” said Finn, unable to hide his smile.
“I think you probably know why I’m here,” started Statura, but Finn cut him off.
“Yes sir, I do. I’m in. Sign me up.”