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In retrospect, it feels like he should have woken with one brief jerk into action. That's how he's woken up every morning he can remember – dreamless darkness into the bright light of the dormitory bays. FN2100s: action required immediately.
Instead, he partially surfaces and returns back to the depths, over and over again. Voices he can't place, machine beeping, Poe talking too quietly to be heard and laughing at his own jokes, or sometimes Rey –
Rey, he thinks on his way back to the darkness. There was something important – something very important. It slips through his grasp.
When it happens, it takes him too long to realize that he can open his eyes. Slowly, and he immediately closes them against the light – dimmer than the dormitories, but still surprising for his body. His eyes feel sticky, and heavy, but he opens them again.
Someone trills by his side, and he turns his head. BB-8, tilted at a cautious angle.
"Hey," he says, mostly voiceless. BB-8 straightens, spins in a little circle, and rolls away, beeping insistently.
"Hey, hey, okay," he hears Poe saying. "—He is?" Poe's a fuzzy blur of browns as he walks towards him. "Finn?"
Finn. Right. He smiles a bit, before realizing – "Where's Rey?" Poe's hand stops him mid-pulling himself up, around the time he realizes sitting up is inadvisable. His head pounds worse than post-reprogramming. It resounds with noise as it thumps back against the headrest.
"She got back safe," Poe says, and squeezes Finn's shoulder lightly. Finn relaxes. He remembers – he remembers Kylo Ren, in the snow, light saber buzzing with furious anger. He isn't to be crossed, and he knows who Finn is.
Traitor.
"Good," he says, exhausted. He has questions, but he can't – he can't – he hears Poe ask BB-8 to get the medical staff around the same time he passes out.
--
Weeks later, he's only starting to understand the enormity of what happened. The only thing that doesn't surprise him is that Rey's a Jedi. If anyone was going to be, it would be her.
Well, he's also not surprised that Poe managed to take out the thermoregulator. The story he gave was different than the other pilots. His was a straightforward "I had a chance, so I took it," with a grin, instead of the crazy tale they told about overwhelming odds and luck. Or the Force, he can't – really tell the difference. He's pretty sure he believes them more. Poe doesn't really lie, but he doesn't seem to have any idea how amazing his piloting is.
Finn's sitting outside catching his breath after his latest session of physical therapy, watching everyone mill about on the tarmac. A boot taps against the side of his leg and he looks up with a grin as Poe drops to sit next to him, handing over one of the meat-stuffed breads the pilots seem to live off of. It's practical, and more tolerable than the tubed goop the Stormtroopers would get on the go.
"I got you something," Poe says, once they're done with lunch.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, given you wrecked it." Poe grins to himself as he grabs his bag, elbow lightly jostling Finn's side. "Took a while, but I got requisitions to fix your jacket." He pulls it out of the bag, and hands it over.
Finn quickly shucks the thick woolen open sweater the med team gave him, because he still can't bend his shoulders right to pull one on over his head, and picks up the jacket. It's scarred down the back, but the worst-burnt leather has been snipped away and the space covered with a new strip, carefully sewn in. Finn runs his fingers over it.
"I could probably get you a new one," Poe says, after a minute. Awkward, Finn realizes, after he looks up at him.
"No," Finn says. "No, it's –"
Finn's never had a name. Finn's never had personal belongings. Finn's never had history.
He puts it on, trying to ignore the pain in his shoulders, leather less malleable than wool. It's better, when it's on. It's comfortable. It feels like...
He grins at Poe. After a moment of watching him carefully, Poe breathes a laugh and grins back.
None of this is anything like home. It's better.