Chapter Text
Every cell in Poe’s body was screaming at him by the time he had finished recounting his story to Ohn Gos. The Blarina merchant had listened sympathetically, as Naka Iit promised he would, but whether or not he could be of any practical help remained to be seen. The adrenaline that had carried the pilot thus far was wearing off, leaving in its wake only blinding pain and exhaustion so deep that Poe was almost starting to wish for death.
“You are in luck, madman,” Ohn Gos said finally. The words took a few moments to register in Poe’s overwrought mind, and even when they did he could do little more than look up blearily.
“There is a human trader just about to finish up his business here on Jakku, who might be persuaded to take you home. I will take you to him.”
Blowback Town was not large, but Poe couldn’t even manage the walk from one side to the other, so Ohn Gos graciously drove him in his speeder. The freighter was massive, but unmarked, and Poe prayed to whatever deity that existed in this forsaken corner of the Western Reaches that its Captain was not aligned with the First Order. An old man, presumably the Captain himself, moved over to them as the speeder came to a stop. The Blarina merchant nimbly hopped out, and Poe followed, albeit a lot slower and with a lot more difficulty. His legs felt weak and he had to lean against the speeder just to stay upright.
“Changed your mind, Ohn Gos?”
“Not at all, my good friend, not at all. I came across this madman here who is desperate to get off this planet, and I thought perhaps you could take him off my hands.”
“For a price, no doubt.”
An ancient astromech droid rolled up behind the man, a motley of so many different models that it was impossible to classify. The man hardly took any notice of its approach.
“Oh no, Captain, on the contrary! He saved the life of a fellow Blarina, which is considered the highest luck among my people. No payment necessary, I assure you.”
“Hmm.”
Poe felt the man’s eyes on him, and looked up. The man was visibly taken aback at the sight of Poe’s face, and the pilot really hoped it was only because he looked terrible, not because he had been recognised as a fugitive of the First Order.
The man whistled. “Someone’s done a number on you, kid. Where do you need to go?”
Shit. He couldn’t just reveal the location of the Resistance base to a complete stranger. Poe swallowed, and again, trying to conjure enough moisture so that he could actually speak, and said the first thing that came into his head. “Th- The Yavin system.”
The man’s face closed off. “That’s far out of my way.”
Poe’s shoulders slumped. “I can pay you, whatever you want. I just need to get back.”
“Fifty thousand. Half now, half when we arrive.”
The astromech’s visual processor looked Poe up and down, and it beeped reproachfully at its master. Poe dimly understood the binary for [He’s dying], but not even that seemed to sway the man, and Poe would have cried in frustration if he had any spare moisture left in his body. He was so exhausted, and everything hurt so much. “I don’t- I don’t have money on me, but I can pay you when we get to Yavin, I promise, please-”
Poe broke off, out of breath, out of energy. He’d resigned himself to death on the Finalizer, and then got free, and had started to think that maybe, against all the odds, he’d make it back. The longer he stood here, slowly bleeding out into the desert, the less likely it seemed.
All of a sudden the man came towards him, looking intently at his face. “You look awfully familiar. What’s your name, kid?”
Poe was getting tired, so tired, of all this talking. “Poe Dameron.”
In the blink of an eye, the man’s whole demeanour changed. Poe felt a vague sinking in his stomach, thinking that the man was a First Order sympathiser after all, but then the Captain said, “Dameron? Kes and Shara’s boy?”
Poe managed a nod, hoping that having known his parents would make the old man more helpful. “Please, I’ll pay you whatever you want, just, please… I can’t…” he felt his legs start to give out, and then all of a sudden the old man had an arm around him and was supporting his weight.
“Never mind about that now, I owe my life to Shara Bey twice over. Never got the chance to pay her back. The least I can do is see her son home safely.” The old captain turned his head and said something to Ohn Gos, but Poe couldn’t make sense of the words, and then he was being led towards the ship and up the ramp. The Captain also told Poe his name, but the pilot’s vision was going dark at the edges and all of his concentration was taken up by putting one foot in front of the other. He had none to spare to take note of names.
He was led to a chair in the cockpit where he could be strapped in more securely than anywhere else on the freighter, thus bracing his injuries and limiting the possibility of aggravating them during flight, and where the Captain could keep an eye on him and make sure he didn’t get worse.
“Okay, kid,” said the Captain. “Where is it that you really need to go?”
Poe blinked at the old man in confusion, and was given a wry smile in return.
“If anyone is a member of the Resistance, it’s the son of Kes Dameron and Shara Bey. Given the state you’re in, it looks like you’ve got some bad news. So I assume you’d rather go straight to your base?”
Poe nodded. “You can’t tell anyone where it is.” He’d already betrayed Leia and the Resistance once, out of his control as that was, and he didn’t want to do it a second time.
“I won’t. I swear it on your mother’s honour, Force rest her soul. Consider it repayment of my second life debt.”
Poe scrutinised the man’s face as much as he was able in his semi-conscious state, and decided the Captain was trustworthy. Poe was no Jedi, but he had a pretty good sense of judgement when it came to people. “D’Qar. The Ileenium System.”
The Captain nodded, patted him on the knee, and headed back over to the console to input the coordinates.
Poe was content to sit there in half-consciousness as the captain and first mate prepared for take-off, and felt the ship lift into the air only distantly. He was somehow still bleeding from somewhere, he could feel it, warm and damp, seeping out of him with every sluggish beat of his heart.
Making the jump to hyperspace hurt his battered body, but he was in such an immense amount of pain as it was that it barely registered.
Sometime later, Poe felt a hand on his shoulder, and opened his eyes with great effort to see the first mate crouching in front of him. The first mate was a Mirialan, with skin as yellow as Iolo’s left eye. The brief memory of his friend jarred Poe into something resembling lucidity – I have to get back, I have to see them one more time, I have to tell them what happened – and he realised he was being spoken to. He blinked at the Mirialan in confusion.
“¿Qué?”
The first mate’s eyes widened and he turned back to the captain. Poe tried to focus on the words but couldn’t make them all out. “Sh…ld…try Al…anian?”
Whatever he’d said, the Captain agreed, and the first mate turned back and smiled encouragingly at Poe. “¿Quieres algo de beber? ¿Quieres agua?”
He was asking if Poe wanted water. It had been easier to understand the second time, for some reason, but Poe couldn’t quite figure out why. Poe nodded, and the Mirialan disappeared, and then came back a moment later with a cup. He held it up, slim fingers holding the straw in place so he could guide it between Poe’s parched lips.
The liquid was cool against the pilot’s tongue, and for a moment Poe just drank the water and forgot about everything else, until the Mirialan touched his shoulder again. “Fácil. No tan rapido.”
Poe made an effort to obey, and drank more slowly, but all too soon the cup was empty. He still felt like he had been trampled by an AT-AT and there was no part of him that wasn’t on fire, but at least he had moisture in his mouth and throat again. He licked his lips and nodded at the first mate.
“Gracias.”
The Mirialan smiled. “De nada. Ya casi llegamos.”
Almost there. Poe tried to nod again, and found that he couldn’t keep his eyes open. Maybe if he just sat here with them closed, time would go faster. If he could just…sleep…
He didn’t feel the ship drop out of hyperspace, or enter the atmosphere of D’Qar, but he did feel it when the massive freighter touched down none-too-gently on the ground. He bit back a groan as he was jolted from semi-consciousness, and hissed in pain as the Captain’s hands undoing the seatbelts jostled his broken rib- or was it ribs? It all seemed the same to Poe.
“Come on, my lad. Up you get. Just a short walk outside and you’re home free.”
These words sounded different to the ones he’d been using with the Mirialan, but he understood them relatively easily so he didn’t dwell too much on it.
He allowed the Captain to help him up, and they slowly made their way out of the ship.
<>
The descent of an unmarked freighter onto the tarmac of the Resistance base caused a stir among the people working outside, Snap Wexley among them, and by the time the exit ramp lowered everyone had stopped what they were doing to wander closer.
Snap moved through the crowd to the front ranks, hardly believing his eyes when he recognised Poe Dameron, of all people, stumbling out of the freighter, supported by an old man who was presumably the ship’s captain. It had been a week of radio silence since Poe was supposed to return from Jakku, and it was just starting to sink in that they’d probably lost him.
By the look of him, that was still a distinct possibility.
Snap was running to him even before Poe swayed, far too unsteady on his feet for comfort, even walking aided, and reached the pilot just as Poe collapsed, slipping out from under the Captain’s arm. Wexley caught him just in time to save him from hitting the ground. His head lolled against Snap’s upper arm, and he just barely managed to whisper Snap’s name before he lost consciousness completely.
Time was short. Snap thanked the Captain and scooped Poe up, ordering someone nearby to fetch the General, and then shouldered through the gathered crowd and rushed towards the medcentre. He knew it was bad even before he felt the warmth of Poe’s blood soaking through his shirt, for a number of reasons:
- Poe was a week late
- BB-8 was nowhere to be seen
- Neither was Poe’s X-Wing, which Dameron loved like his own child and would not abandon unless there was no saving it
And most worryingly:
- Poe had barely made it to the end of the exit ramp before he dropped like a stone, and was covered in what looked like all the blood in his body.
The main entrance to the medcentre didn’t have a door, to make transporting patients into and out of the subterranean hospital easier, and Snap had never been more thankful for that than he was in that moment. He could feel that at least two of Poe’s ribs were broken and grating against each other, and he didn’t even want to think about what other injuries his friend could be suffering.
“Move! Out of my way!” he shouted as he entered the medical section proper, frustrated that people were blocking the corridor. “Get out of the way!”
Most people moved straight away at the sound of Wexley’s shout, and those that didn’t only had to look at the battered pilot in his arms to be spurred into movement.
Whispers of “That’s Poe Dameron” followed him as he headed for the ICU, and he knew that the entire base would know about this in less than an hour. Even though it had been a week, everyone had been half-expecting Poe to turn up with some crazy story of an unlikely escape, perhaps a little bruised but otherwise fine. To have him return like this just seemed like early confirmation of everyone’s worst nightmare.
He failed. The mission failed, and unless we get that map before the First Order, we are all fucked.
“In here!” called Dr Kalonia, waving Wexley into an empty room. He gently lowered Poe onto the bed, gritting his teeth at the obviously pain-filled sound the pilot made, and then was politely pressed out of the way so the medics could get to work.