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They bring Poe out of the X-Wing on a stretcher and leave the cockpit red and dripping and Finn's not there at that moment but Rey touches him through the Force and he throws down his folders and scrambles over two new recruits and at least one command post table to get there as fast as he can.
It's bad; worse than Finn had been, when they'd brought him back. He remembers parts of that, sensations, moments, sounds. Poe's ashen gray and bloodless, with six inches of broken canopy support sticking out of his chest and it's only later, in the medbay, when he finds out what happened.
"BB-8 jumped him straight into the atmosphere," he hears one of the other pilots saying, holding a limp, cool hand between his own. There's a pulse, he can feel that, punctuating the words in an undercurrent. "Landed Black One, too."
The droid is under the gurney, rolling back and forth like a patrolling guard hound, fretting and hitting Finn's knee repeatedly as the rest of the sounds wash over him in urgent voices.
"I can't do anything for him here," Doctor Kalonia is saying. "He'll need a real surgeon to take that out without killing him immediately and then full suspension in Bacta to heal it."
Finn hears the voice as if down a long corridor, all he can focus on is how dark Poe's eyelashes seem against his bloodless cheeks. He's not sure who Kalonia is talking to, he just hopes he's not expected to respond.
"He's going to run out of time before we can get him to a real facility," Kalonia continues. "It'd be better if he'd have gone right to a capitol city."
"I have an idea," Leia's voice answers, and Finn feels a surge of relief - but he doesn't dare look away even for one second. "But no one's going to like it."
-
Finn's never seen anything frozen in Carbonite, but it should - should! - keep Poe stable until they can get him to a real medical facility. If Finn understands correctly - and he thinks he does - it will either stabilize Poe or kill him. So as he trots alongside the gurney as they wheel it to someplace so improbable as the cargo packing bay, he holds tightly to Poe's hand and understands exactly what it means to believe in the Force.
"We're gonna take care of you," Finn promises, holding onto the unresponsive fingers, watching each shallow breath. "It's gonna be okay."
He tries to mean it. He tries to believe that Poe knows somehow what's happening, that he knows his friends are trying to save him.
If only because Finn feels a quiet, deep terror at the thought of suddenly losing consciousness in combat someday and never even knowing that your life had slipped away until it was gone.
He has to stop touching Poe when they lower him into the chamber, and that requires re-aligning and carefully arranging him upright, and Finn can't watch Poe's face, can't watch the process itself, but he sees the small drops of blood forming a puddle beneath the carbonization platform first increase, and then cease. Gas hisses in and fills the space, the rush of it stings Finn's eyes until he has to step back with his heart in his throat and then he finds a small, strong hand wrapped around his own, paper-dry and cool and confident.
He looks up to see Leia, fiercely watching the proceedings with a firm set to her expression, and Finn hopes her idea was good enough.
What they pull out again only barely resembles Poe - hands at his sides, eyes closed, head tipped down and trapped. It's like the beginnings of a statue without any rough shape for the rest carved out of a flat, muddy-gray slab of carbon. The durasteel spike that still protrudes from his chest could almost be a chisel.
The vital signs read okay - weak, and slow but now unable to regress any further or progress back out of that condition either and Finn feels his own heart start beating again, takes a deep breath and puts his hand on the condensation gathering on the icy-chill surface over the outline of Poe's cheek and refocuses himself.
"It's not over," Leia says. "You still have to get him somewhere safe."
It's voiced gently, but she looks up at him with determination, shaking his hands in hers for punctuation. In this way, it becomes an order. A quest that Finn has been tasked with so that he doesn't have to undertake it on his own against orders. He lets the words harden in his heart and shore up his resolve. It gives him a map to this unknown sea.
-
Rey can't come with them, but she promises, as Finn sits next to the common crate they've hidden Poe in, amongst all of the rest of the cargo. They made the transfer on Takodana, finding a barge that could slip through First Order nets; risking no chances. Poe is vulnerable, and Finn remembers what they'd done to him the last time they'd found him such. He won't let hit happen again - until Poe's on his feet and can see to it himself.
"I'll come as soon as I can," she promises. "Tell him when he wakes up that we'll have Black One all fixed and waiting."
Finn promises back, and then the bay doors close and leave him in the darkness, just another piece of cargo.He leans back and his thoughts wander back and forth over the line between hope and losing it.
-
Where they wind up is a moon in the Yavin system, where Finn knew they were going but hadn't connected in his thoughts to Poe's earlier stories of growing up there. It's only when Kes Dameron himself - an aged version of roughly half of Poe without any clear responsibility for how breathtakingly handsome his son was - collects Finn at the docks that he realizes they've taken Poe home.
"Leia sent word ahead," Kes explains, helping Finn shift and move the heavy container onto the antigrav lift he's brought along. "Can't say I like it."
"I don't either, sir," Finn agrees. Then he seems to run out of words. Maybe all of this was so Kes could see Poe. Maybe they've sent Poe home to be buried if all of this doesn't work out, or to let him down gently if any of the damage is permanent.
Kes doesn't put any of Finn's worries to ease - he has a brusque attitude, and says nothing as he guides them along back ways an alleys until they reach the hospital.Finn feels like the rush should be emergency, like they should run or lights and sirens should follow and announce their presence, but of course, there's no reason for any of that.
"How long's he been in there?" Kes asks, rounding on Finn to relay the question from the nurse.
Finn swallows. "About a week. It took time to arrange transport."
It feels like too long. Finn digs in his satchel and produces the data crystal from Dr. Kalonia - carefully disguised as some other doctor in some other quadrant. Just in case.
They take the box away wholesale, leaving Kes and Poe standing in the waiting room uncertainly, like two pieces of driftwood washed up by an antiseptic ocean against a white tile floor. Crazily, Finn thinks he didn't even get to see Poe.
For a long time they both stand, numb and drifting in the wake of all the action - Kes with his hands in his pockets and Finn with his fingers wrapped so tightly around the strap of his satchel that they become insensate. He hopes that the long silence isn't bad news and waits until Kes unlocks his limbs and reaches out pats Finn once on the shoulder to catch his attention.
"You said it was bad?" he asks, without going into details.
Finn nods.
"It'll be a while then, we'd better sit."
They do. After a time, Kes gets up and fetches them both cafs from somewhere in the tangle of hospital halls, as much for an excuse to stretch his legs as for the drink itself.
He doesn't say anything else, just waits with a discipline that Finn both envies and tries to emulate, his eyes on the wall opposite but his thoughts perhaps miles away.
-
It goes as well as can be expected; they close the gap in Poe's chest, they repair what's internal and patch what's external and if Poe has a few more parts than he had before, he's still Poe. Finn wants to see the results so badly - perhaps more than he's wanted to see anything ever in his life. He wants to see the evidence of healing, but the first glimpse he gets again of Poe is suspended in bacta, masked and floating. Finn wonders if he's dreaming, too, but he can't see the injury for all the tubes and wires and so he has to take it on faith that the hole doesn't go straight through, leaving a gap.
"Did you sleep on the trip?" Kes asks, penetrating the concurrent haze and focus in Finn's thoughts.
"Some," Finn admits.
"Better take shifts watching, then," Kes says, reasonably, as if they'd had a real conversation about it. Something in Finn's heart connects a little then, and he's glad for the solid, quiet presence of Kes to help keep Finn from getting left behind in Poe's recovery.
-
"He was in a weakened state when he was frozen in carbonite," the doctor explains later, part of the unofficial discharge instructions given to Finn and Kes as they smuggle Poe out the back door to avoid an Order patrol of the facilities. "It's likely there'll be some pretty advanced hibernation sickness. Muscle weakness, temporary blindness. It's important to remember that will pass. Just be patient."
"What about any other complications?" Finn asks anxiously. "With the chest wound or...?"
"Consult the medical droid," the doctor suggests, indicating the suitcase-sized rectangle folded beneath the gurney. "But the worst of it is over."
Finn holds onto that like a mantra, the worst is over, as Kes gets them someplace safe, as he helps Poe's father carry Poe down underground into some secret bunker from ages ago and thinks all this commotion should have woken Poe up, even as the body tries to escape his grasp through utter limpness.
But down here it's quiet, safe, isolated. It's almost like being frozen in the block with Poe, except now Finn can see the angry, knitting pink flesh describing it's jagged line just to the right of the center of Poe's chest, more than the span of his hand in length. The skin there is red, angry, scabbed; healing, alive. The rest of him is flushed pink-under-sandalwood, a far cry from the pale spirit Finn had started this journey with, and then Finn can take a deep breath and let it out.
"I hoped he'd make it back with you without a major injury," Kes confides, one sentence into the fluorescent-lit space. He looks down at Poe only now, reaching out to squeeze his son's hand once - a gesture that conveys a lot with a little.
"Well, me too," Finn says, and then he realizes something and stands up, offers his hand over Poe's inert form. "I'm Finn."
"Kes Dameron," Kes says, taking Finn's hand with a military firmness that doesn't overdo it. He has farmer's hands now and not soldier's callouses. "He spoke about you. Rey, too."
"She's on the way," Finn says. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Dameron."
"Kes is fine," Kes says, sounding firm enough that Finn wonders if it really will be.
-
There's no one sign that tells Finn that Poe is awake, rather several small ones coalesce to pull Finn up from the book he's reading as exhaustion threatens to overtake him. Kes is 'off-shift'; sleeping on a couch that unfolds in the other room of this bunker, and Finn is trying his damndest not to follow suit.
There's a motion in the corner of his eye, and a sound of indrawn breath and then Poe moves under his own power - slowly, agonizingly - for the first time in a while, his eyes blinking open and then, unfocused, sweeping over the room.
Finn drops the book in his hurry to get up, and Poe winces.
"It's okay," Finn says, reaching for the hand Poe is pressing over the scar in his chest, exploring. "Hey, Poe, it's okay."
"Hey, Finn. Why's it so dark?" Poe mutters, his voice harsh and weak and Finn's heart swells and breaks in the same instant. He can't be close enough to Poe then, putting his arms around Poe's shoulders as carefully as he can and scooping him half off the bed and against his own chest.
"You have hibernation sickness," Finn tells him. "It's okay."
"Hibernation...?" Poe sounds utterly, helplessly confused. "Buddy, did you put me in carbonite?"
Finn tries to hold back his relieved laughter, but he can't - he can't, not feeling the raised scar against his own chest through his shirt and Poe's, not feeling the way Poe's breathing strong and on his own, even if the hands coming up to Finn's shoulders seem to lack their usual strength and co-ordination.
"Yeah, sorry," Finn says, in one breath out so it doesn't get bigger than that. "It was, uh, it was Leia's idea."
"Well, you owe me a story," Poe says, unsteadily, "but first for some really bad news for you. I have got to pee."
It gives Finn permission to laugh again, to gently pull Poe up to sitting.
"Will you be able to stand on your own?" Finn asks, suddenly concerned about the logistics of this as Poe's muscles seem unwilling to hold him up.
"Stand, nothing," Poe says. "I'll settle for not falling into the toilet. You could help, you know, it's not like you've never-"
"Uh," Finn interrupts, carefully. Quickly. "Your dad. Is. Kes is in the other room."
-
Later, Poe refuses to return to the bed, instead insisting on joining Finn on the couch, on settling over his lap where he can feel all of the comforting things that Finn feels to have Poe alive and warm and breathing. Right there, where Finn can cover his body with touches like he's only just realized that someday, Poe might not be there anymore.
"So we had to get you to a real hospital, and Kes insisted it should be here," Finn wraps up. "That's about all there is to it."
"So now you've met my dad," Poe says, looking up blearily in roughly Finn's direction - for his part, Finn thinks he's laying on the untouchable, unshakable factor a little thick for someone who won't let Finn get out of touching distance. "Does that make us official?"
"Official what, exactly?" Finn asks, running his hand through Poe's hair gently, feeling the residual tackiness that bacta immersion leaves and thinking Poe will probably want a shower as soon as he can get his muscles to all work together like that.
"I mean like, officially dating," Poe says.
"I think we'd better wait for Rey to meet your dad, too," Finn suggests. "Besides, maybe I'm reconsidering dating someone who almost dies so much."
Poe shrugs this off, reaching up hazily to get his hands on either side of Finn's head. "Come down here."
Finn does, leaning down to touch his forehead against Poe's gently.
"That's my favorite big brown blur," Poe says, smiling. "How can you blame me if it's so awesome every time you take care of me, buddy? But I tell you what, since you're special - between you and me I'll try to lay off the dangerous stunts for a little while."
Finn thinks - warmly - that this will last exactly as long as Poe is grounded for, and knows that's part of why he loves Poe so much.
"Hey dad," Poe adds, causing Finn to jerk back to an appropriate distance from Kes' convalescing son.
Kes is in the doorway to the smaller room, watching them with something in his eyes that Finn thinks is either pride or a strong attempt to keep everything in check. His eyes don't lift from Poe, focused and fixated. It takes Finn a minute to recognize that Kes is holding the big splinter of metal that had come out of Poe's chest in his hands like a totem against evil, and he sets it aside on a shelf as he comes closer, reaching out to take Poe's hand when it wobbles up in his direction, his strength engulfing Poe's unsteadiness.
"So, this is Finn, my boyfriend," Poe says, lightly, tossing it off as if they'd come down for the family reunion - and maybe, in a way, they have.
"Be nice to this one, mijo," Kes tells him. "I think you should keep him."
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