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Poe dreams about a tree with golden-green leaves stretching far and high over his parents’ land. He learned to climb before he learned to fly, and would spend hours nestled in the top branches, gazing at the sky.
He never fell, not once, and he grew up thinking he was protected.
He wakes up in pain, raw, exposed. He panics, at first, because he can’t see, but then he realizes it’s dark out, it’s night time. The rapidly cooling sand he’s lying on scratches against his abraded hands and wrists when he tries to push himself upright, and his legs buckle as soon as he puts his weight on them.
He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know who he is.
He does know he has to get up, get water, get... something? Get the map? Someone else is looking for the map. Someone clawed through his mind to find it, taunting him for being unable to keep it safe.
Falling out of the sky.
Falling-
Poe dreams about the warm summer evenings when his father would trade war stories with other former soldiers. He learned about courage and honor in the same breath as mischief and rebellion, and when his mother shook her head and joked about the type of heroes he was being provided, his father grinned and said there were none greater.
Once, his mother said, “He’s going to end up just like us, you know.”
Poe wanted to point out that he was already just like them- and especially like her since she was teaching him to fly- but there was a sadness in her eyes that he didn’t understand.
“He’ll be better than us,” his father said firmly, and he grew up believing he could keep that promise.
He wakes up knowing he’s failed.
“He is the sorriest thing you have ever brought me,” says the Blarina merchant who’s arranging transport off Jakku. Poe doesn’t remember his name; he’s still counting it as a victory that he can remember his own name through the haze of concussion.
The other Blarina- Naka Iit, the one who saved him- says, “But he is a most excellent pilot, Ohn Gos. How I wish you’d seen him in action!”
“‘m good-looking, too,” Poe mumbles, not bothering to open his eyes.
Naka Iit laughs. “And still completely mad! Your words can’t be trusted, my friend.”
He means it as a joke- Poe knows it’s a joke- but it echoes harshly: can’t be trusted, can’t be trusted.
He can’t be trusted now that he’s been broken, now that he knows how easily it was done.
He can’t trust in the Force now that he knows what it can do.
He can’t-
Poe dreams about his mother teaching him to fly. She would put her hands over his and guide him through maneuvers in her a-wing, and he learned to be as calm and unwavering as her touch. She taught him to control his movements, to be aware of his position, to know it in relation to everything else around him.
“Everything is connected through the Force,” she told him in hushed, reverent tones. “That’s why you’re so drawn to the stars, my son. You’re part of them as much as you're part of me.”
“But, Mama, I can't feel it,” Poe said. “I can’t feel the Force like the Jedi do.”
His mother smiled and brushed his unruly hair out of his eyes. “You don’t have to feel the Force to know it’s there,” she said, and he grew up knowing it was with him even when she no longer was.
He wakes up with tears stinging his eyes. There’s a hand gripping his shoulder, and for a split second he thinks he’s still trapped on the Finalizer, about to be dragged off for another beating, but the touch is too gentle. He turns his head- slowly- and sees General Organa’s worried face.
He’s back on D’Qar.
He has no idea how he got there.
“You’re all right,” the general says softly. “You’re safe.” She reaches out to brush his hair back, and the fragments of his dream, of his mother doing the same thing, hit him with unexpected force, making his eyes well up again.
Then her hand becomes Kylo Ren’s hand, and he flinches. Hard.
She pulls back immediately, and her stricken expression tells him that she knows- or, at least, she can guess- what happened. “Oh, Poe,” she says, but then the words fail her.
Poe brings his own hands up to scrub over his face, forcing himself to breathe steadily. “I‘m okay,” he says, even as a dull ache starts to gather at his temples. “I just... need a minute.” He needs more than that, and they both know it, but it’s all he’s going to get.
The general watches him pull himself back together, then says, “It’s a terrible thing to face the power of the Dark Side. You have no idea how much I wish I could’ve spared you from it.”
“I never knew...” Poe trails off, swallows convulsively, and tries again: “I never knew what it could do. My mother always believed the Light was stronger than the Dark. That the Force was essentially good.”
“The Force is whatever we bring to it,” the general answers, and her mouth twists into a sad smile. “And Shara brought so much Light. She passed it on to you, you know. It will get you through this.”
“I know,” Poe says, even though his faith- like the rest of him- is in tatters. If he starts saying it now, eventually he’ll start believing it, too. Until then, it's enough that the Resistance still needs him fit to fly.