Chapter Text
They’re in.
Take off.
He thought they’d all die. They nearly all died. Because of what he did, send the bombers to death to the last one, send Finn and Rose and BB8 to a hare-brained hopeless mission. Because of what he didn’t, turn back when ordered, stay put when ordered. Or maybe of what he did, order the speeders to turn back when there might have been a chance to stop that cannon. And then Skywalker died.
But they’re in the ship now – what, all of the last twenty of them? Because the girl, Rey, saved the day.
Maybe because he did one good thing, when he listened for those crystal critters?
No. Because Luke bought them time.
Luke’s dead. Leia felt it.
Twenty left walking. Or so. He hasn’t counted. Maybe thirty. He hopes at least twenty, and the seven wounded they managed to haul in. There were four hundreds of them.
The Falcon’s deck is crowded but there’s going to be room plenty enough in the holds. Fucking Force, the entire Resistance contained with ease in a smallish freighter, minus the few scattered teams who were sent elsewhere. Scouts, the ones they could spare that are now the entirety of the Resistance fire power and fleet. Is it obscene to thank the Force for the life of Wexley and Pava, when so many are dead? When Kare is dead–
But they’re the spark, all of them. Holdo said so.
He feels a surge of incommensurable anger, violent and short-lived, mingled with self-pity. Why didn’t she say? Why did she let them all believe that this slow-motion death, the torching of their vessels down to the last barge, stretched over hours, wasn’t their only horizon? If he’d known he’d have obeyed, he’d have put everything he had in the balance for more of them to reach their target…
If she'd trusted him she’d have known of Finn’s plan in time, they’d have found a reliable code-breaker, Luke would be alive, Holdo would be alive, the Resistance would be–
But he asked for unconditional obedience from the bombers, didn’t he, when he sent them to death? So why does he thinks he’s different? He should have obeyed whatever his commanding officer told him, or didn’t. That’s the thing. Not his to decide. He should have stopped believing his impulses are better than any plan. No, he should have stopped believing that sacrifice, one-on-a-million chances and a last run for glory are and are always the ultimate and best plan.
Funny, isn’t it, that Holdo sacrificed herself in the end? Did she feel some guilt, too? Or did she know she did right?
But they’re the spark. He, Poe, said so.
These people here, these twenty or so, don’t seem to realise how unworthy he was to shoulder up this burden. They’re looking at him, hoping. He looks back, realising it’s been only some minutes since they felt that bump and surge of the Falcon breaking away, hoping nobody caught his lapse.
Finn’s there, the Force be thanked. Poe feels something that sways, surges, overflows and then steadies inside him, stronger than before. And Rose is, too, unconscious, and that little glorious wonder of a droid who calls him friend.
And so he stands straighter and assumes again the pilot persona. Charismatic. Caring, which is more than a stance, which reaches into his deepest core but that they know he’s sincere makes it easier and sort of like cheating. He becomes the man who laughs in the face of danger, who stares fate in the eye. An ace pilot. A luck magnet – ha. A leader, not that he thinks he’s worthy, but they appear to believe he’s what they’ve got, did they forget Leia is still alive? – so he has to.
They’re laughing too, for that brief suspended moment in time, patting backs, hugging, congratulating each other on being alive. Unable to look back at the massacre, or forward at – who knows.
Poe pats BB8 and comforts all the others – but not Finn, who ditched the painstakingly patched-back jacket somewhere but still wears Poe’s shirt over First Order pants and the spare boots Poe found him, except with some sort of smile-glance-nod. He feels drawn to him to the point it’s physically painful not to jump and open his arms in an embrace, but Finn is fussing around an unconscious Rose and hasn’t got time for Poe. Who’d blame him? Poe is the guy who sent them to a fool’s mission and then to an even stupider ride, clunky speeders and light blasters against a Death Star. He averts his eyes and spots Rey sending little forlorn glances at Finn in exactly the same way he’s afraid he’s doing himself.
Poe has never balked from this kind of competition before but there’s a first to everything, to calling for retreat as to withdrawing from unrequited love. Of course, even before today, in the brief hours when Finn and Poe had been reunited, he’d been aware of the potential love triangle with Rey. But a love rectangle is where he draws the line.
Rey looks terribly powerful and terribly alone. She needs friends and they’ll need to work together, so he goes to formally introduce. It’s awkward. But nice.
She’s the spark. But is she? Would be cruel to say it aloud. A young woman, alone, carrying the hopes of the Galaxy. A handful of Resistance people sheltering her, feeding her flame and blowing on her to light the fire, not too gently. No. In his altered state, his metaphors are getting warped if not downright unhealthy and just – no.
“We’ll be the collective spark, won’t we?” he blurts, then grimaces. “Sorry. I don’t make much sense right now.” Haven’t been for some time.
“You should sleep,” she says, looking through him like she knows what lies behind the exhaustion.
His hand is at his forehead again, trying to massage the –thing –shame – away. Too late to prevent himself. His jaw itches, too. He hasn’t shaved, feels disgusting.
But Rey doesn’t add anything. He likes that she respects his privacy. That she’s not one for metaphors, too. He likes her bluntness. And how her voice is pitched lower than he thought. He can see how Finn would be drawn to her.
He sighs. “They’re waiting,” he says, meaning the last twenty around them. “Where has Leia gone?”
“To – to Han’s bunk. I thought—”
“Yeah. It’s hers too. Is she resting?”
“I hope so.”
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “Well. You feel like making a speech?”
“No.”
It makes him see something else in her. She’s not really trembling, more like vibrating. Not so much exhausted as on the edge. Not grieving – not yet – but raw.
Going down after the high of her life. He knows the feeling. And Force, is she young.
“Alright,” he says. “Hear me make a fool of myself.”
He likes her smile, too. Nice teeth. Definitely sees why Finn cares so much.
Doesn’t help him find the words. He breathes in.
“Okay, guys.” His voice bears. The Falcon’s main room is crowded enough, thankfully. He couldn’t have gone on if his there had been echoes. He breathes out. “Right now, we all have a name on our tongue. Many names. That we want to shout out loud. So that we remember and – Force.” He breathes in, or tries. They’re watching. Finn is, his mouth pressed tight, the line on his forehead creased deep. Nobody’s crying. They probably feel as he does, and he can’t… “I can’t,” he says out loud. “There are better people than me who could have – there were… I can’t.” fuck, there were better people, there to find the right words, to restore hope, to give time to grieve, dead, Luke, Holdo–
“But we’re here,” is what finally comes out of his constricted throat. “We’ll go on living. Right now, we rest, we organise, we regroup. For them. The Galaxy hasn’t gone dark. Not all of it.”
“Poe’s right,” Rey interjects. “You all need to rest. There’s room enough on the main deck. The crew’s quarters are there but I think Leia’s entitled to them. Finn found the blankets, he’ll show you. Finn, I’ll watch Rose for you.”
“Won’t we use the lower holds?” Poe asks, although he’s relieved that they can all stay close together.
“They’re very cold. Also, don’t know what Unkar Plutt did with them, but even though we tried all we could with Chewie, they stink.”
C’ai nods and gets moving, along with some others. Connix remains standing, defiant, her head held high.
“We need to decide where we go and fast,” Poe says, not wanting to make the mistake Holdo did. Everyone needs to know what’s the plan. “The base we envisioned can’t be safe anymore. I can think of a couple of other candidates but anyone who wants to weigh in can come to the cockpit.”
“Right,” Rey says. “We need to listen to Chewie too.”
Many smile even if it’s watery. Chewbacca’s expertise on strategically disappearing as a way of saving Han’s ass had reached legendary status in the last years. Connix sniffles discretely and blinks.
“We are not alone,” Poe says, trying to find the certainty in himself. “We will find hope. And a place to grieve. There’ll come a time when we can say their names, all of them.”
Connix pats her hip. “I have everyone. Here. I downloaded the main comp before we left. We won’t forget them.”
//
System names have been tossed around. Calls have been taken, Poe has woken old contacts, former cadets who left the navy on times, friends of his parents, some shadier connexions, even the worst kind of fans. He has never felt more relieved than when he got a choked Wexley on the comm and Pava suspiciously close to crying in the background. They’re getting spontaneous calls, rerouted through mysterious ways. Yesterday’s solo stunt against Hux’s destroyer seems to have gained traction around the holonet as has, more deservedly, the bombers’ sacrifice. Vocations might arise from it which Poe knows is necessary – not as sure as before whether it’s good.
More importantly, the crisscrossing of conversations in the com has revealed the story of Luke’s heroic standoff. Seems that some cogs in the New Order don’t work as they should, or at least that they talk too much. Nobody in the Falcon can make sense of what they’re told, nor of what they witnessed – Luke’s lightsaber was the wrong colour, there’s no explanation on how he came on Crait nor how he entered the mine, and Rey, who’s probably not telling all she knows, says his beard was grey last time she saw him, not brown – but the story has spread like only true legends can. People will rally.
“That’s not only time he bought us. He gave us hope,” Poe said at one point, unable to look Rey in the eye. He doesn’t think she’s so fond of becoming a legend herself.
An agreement has been found on where to regroup after Finn strolled in like the thought had just crossed his mind (Poe thinks it has. He begins to know him, or he likes to think so). He just lit up the holomap again, said he didn’t know much about the Galaxy’s geography but couldn’t help hearing what they were talking about, and then, very exhaustively, outlined the contradictions, the impossibilities and the strengths of their various options, said, clear-voiced, which worlds would become dead ends and which opened up their choices. The others, even Rey, looked surprised. Finn stepped just a little closer to Poe, and the back of his hand crept down Poe’s forearm, his fingers briefly squeezing Poe’s wrist (Poe doesn’t think Finn was aware of it). In the silence, Poe smiled, took, with Rey’s help, Chewbacca’s advice on the itinerary and keyed in Finn’s best choice.
“No!” Finn said. “Poe, what if it’s not – if I’m not – what if it was like last time I…”
“Looks like our best choice,” Poe said, at the same time as Connix, one of the few still alive who know what Finn’s talking about, muttered: “last time it could have worked. If it had, we’d—”
Poe put a hand on her arm and she stopped.
Now they’re down to the logistics of settling in the Falcon for what promises to be a long, bumpy ride through backward routes but Poe isn’t sure he’s completely there anymore. When he blinks he sees wrecked frigates and shuttles bursting. Maybe there’s the phantom sound of people shouting as they’re burning. That’s not a nightmare and he’s not sleeping since he’s afraid of closing his eyes too long.
“Poe, go to sleep,” Rey says. “All of you. Food rations and fresher rotations can wait until you’re coherent.”
“You, too.” Finn says. “Rey, you look – what happened?”
Poe would swear Rey shuts off.
“What happened,” she repeats. “I – I’ll tell you. I’ll have to tell all of you. It’s – huge. But – not what I hoped. You’ve seen. Kylo Ren is in command. I – I am not Luke and I think I need some time. I – please give me time?”
“Oh,” Finn says. “Okay. Right. I’ll go check on Rose.”
That soon leave Chewbacca, a heartbroken Poe and a stunned Rey alone in the cockpit. Poe sighs.
“Give him time, too,” he says. And, since she’s still looking lost somewhere deep inside herself: “I’m going to find myself a place to sleep. But first, Finn’s right, we all need to. Would you and Chewbacca mind if we established watches at the Falcon’s dashboard? First one pilots, second co-pilots, third rests, then we rotate?”
“Third being you?”
“Ah,” Poe says, trailing a hand on the cracked, stained, polished surface of the dashboard. “It’s been my dream since I was a toddler, piloting the Falcon.”
She smiles. “When I was a kid I thought she was just garbage. She’s one-of-a-kind, the Falcon, isn’t she?”
Chewbacca howls his agreement. Poe feels a pang of sadness, a grief deeper than he’s got a right to in the midst of this tragedy.
“I lost my own ship,” he says, thinking that if some people can understand it’s these two. “Black One.”
“Your X-Wing?” Rey asks, her hand going up to grip Poe’s arm.
“I know it’s trivial with all these people dead and the Galaxy falling to the dark side, but –”
“You lost your wings,” Rey says as Chewbacca engulfs him in a hug – the hair feels softer than Poe thought.
“When I flew her, I – no, BB-8 and I, well the three of us felt like one, you know?”
She does.
Chewbacca tries a pat on Poe’s back that isn’t calibrated quite right and howls something approving that Poe isn’t completely sure he’s parsed right.
“Of course we’ll take turns piloting the Falcon,” Rey translates. “Are the three of us the only qualified?”
Chewbacca howls another name.
“Nien Nunb?” Rey asks. “Who is he?”
“Of course, Nien Nunb,” Poe says, ashamed he forgot. For a moment it had felt like the survivors of the old Rebellion are fading into legendary status, not quite there anymore. “He’s more qualified than I am, already piloted the Falcon. I think he’s with Leia right now. They’re old friends. I should have –”
“You should have gone to sleep hours ago.”
//
Poe decides to bunk on the main room bench. Other areas are likely to be even more crowded and the cushions here held up well enough, so why not? And it’s the rational choice since it’s the closest to the cockpit. Besides, Finn isn’t far, watching Rose in the corridor alcove. Maybe Poe likes how it hurts.
He thought that he’d toss and turn and watch Finn not watch him for hours. That the damp, chill air from the faulty conditioning would seep into his bones and remind him of Leia floating in space. That if he ever managed to sleep images of ships bursting in flames would jolt him awake.
He falls asleep like a stone sinks through bottomless water.
He dreams.
A chair.
He’s tied to a chair and needs to stand up to go help Finn and Rose (Kylo Ren’s laugh is echoing somewhere). There’s something wrong because he felt too warm on that chair in the Finalizer but now he feels cold, flailing in slow motion through cold water or the deep void.
Then a touch on his cheek bizarrely warms his body and he manages to stand up but he has to run to his X-Wing and he runs and runs and never reaches it and he runs and sees each and every pilot getting shot down in turn (that laugh is still there).
Then he doesn’t dream anymore, wakes up shouting.
A name.
Paige.
Someone dimmed the lights. Huddled shapes are tossing around, others are groaning, he hears another shout. His neck tangles in a blanket he didn’t know he had when he tries to sit up. Finn has slumped down the corridor wall to a sprawled sitting position and snores slightly, his nose still clogged by old blood. Rose’s eyes are open and glint in the dark. Paige, Poe thinks her lips form.
He has to stand and get away, won’t be able to sleep anymore. He takes the time to arrange Finn in a more comfortable position and adds the blanket – Rose’s eyes look very large and her face very solemn – then leaves.
“Thinking of finding a less crowded area?” A veiled, tired, oh so comforting voice says – Leia.
“General, Ma’am –”
He can hear the smirk.
“Commander.”
He sighs. “Captain, wasn’t it.”
“It was,” she says, but her voice isn’t harsh. “Yes. Captain. I made it so. I think I was right.”
Poe nods, doesn’t know if she sees it. He can see the outline of her head backlit by some standby light in the corridor, the still-done hair, the few wisps escaped from her braid, too few for her to have slept on it. He doesn’t say what they both think. General, Commander, Captain, fossilised addresses from when there were more of them than a kernel of thirty refugees in a smuggler’s ship. Habit-driven, comforting. Meaningless.
“Where were you heading?” she asks. “There are sleepers everywhere.”
Hasn’t thought of it. “The lower holds, maybe?”
“They stink. I checked.”
She’s more bent than one week ago. Not frail – she’ll never let herself become frail even at death’s door, he thinks – but smaller, stooped, crouched, maybe, in the protective stance of someone who’s both wounded and bracing for attack. He passes his arm across her shoulders, pulls her to his side. Feels her lay her head against him, feels her arm and back muscles relax. Feels himself unwind a notch.
“Couldn’t sleep either?” he asks.
“I have a few names of my own that I shout at night. More than a few. So, what about the gunner’s well? Nobody’s likely to have gone there.”
“Is there room enough for two?”
“Of course there is. Did it often.”
They both know with whom. Must have felt cosy back then. He can’t help the heat creeping up his neck, like a ten years old who realises what his parents have been doing behind that closed door.
“Did you give me the blanket?” he asks as they walk to the ladder.
“No. I would have, but Finn beat me to it.”
And here it comes, this other kind of heat, the one that warms him all around like he hasn’t any right to.
“You saw him?”
“A rare advantage of our quarters being so cramped. A general hasn’t so many opportunities to watch commanders sleep.”
“Captains.”
“Captains. I think he touched your cheek, too.”
Poe thinks he might not have parsed it right. Two X-wings blowing off into his face in a little more than a week did nothing to help his hearing. He nods again, because he truthfully doesn’t know how else to react. Thankfully climbing down the ladder saves him from having to show his face.
The gunner’s station is very cramped.
“There’s a bolt somewhere,” Leia says. “You can unlock the backrest, turn it into a two-person cou-- bench. Han was, uh, very resourceful. Sometimes.”
“Wait,” Poe says, managing to kneel between the walls and the seat. “I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to do, ah, things in an X-Wing, I think I can guess how he – yeah, here.”
He looks up and sees Leia watching him with her head tilted and another of her smirks. Of course she already knew how to unlatch that, and of course she knows that having gallantly tried to do something for her that she could do by herself makes him feel like a fool. Deservedly.
She definitely enjoys standing over him, though. Does he say it aloud?
“There’s – there was a subset of people in the Resistance who’d have squeed to see us like that.” Him and his big mouth.
She looks down, regal. “Well, get on with it.”
The unlocked seat barely accommodates two people. They end up with their legs each on one side, more or less back to back, their heads half-turned towards each other. Silence stretches.
“Is this a debriefing?” Poe asks.
He feels her sigh through his ribcage more than he hears it.
“This is two people who can’t sleep and might find comfort in each other. Do you think I have any grounds for acting as your commanding officer anymore?”
“Of course you have!”
“I’ve failed, Poe. I know you feel like you did too, but I told you, can you imagine the amount of names I could shout throughout my nightmares? Names of people who died because of me? Of people I couldn’t help? Of worlds that fell? General, ha. How could you still call me that?” She laughs, like blades. “I demote myself.”
“No!” Poe yells too forcefully. “No. Just imagine how much worse it’d be without you! All these years. And now. Princess, Senator, General. Not yours to demote yourself! I, no, we know who you are for us.”
Silence.
“I’m tired of it,” she says in a toneless voice.
It breaks his heart even though he guesses she’s only admitting it between the both of them. His hand finds one of hers. Is it colder than it should?
“There’s one name I keep shouting in my sleep,” she says.
Ben, Poe thinks, feeling something clench around his heart.
“Yours. I thought that I had such a need for your skills – that the Resistance had a need. So that it trumped any concerns I could have for your safety. And you – you kept coming back, and I told myself the Force was with you, that it validated my decisions, that I– and each time you came back I became a little more afraid of the next time I’d have to send you out.”
“But I’m alive,” Poe says. “I chose—”
“Yes. My nightmare brain isn’t that good at mourning, it appears. It cares for people who’re still in a position to feel harm. Seems to me now that the only thing I achieved was teaching you that sacrifice is the only service that matters.”
“But ma’am!” Poe says, which elicits another laugh from Leia, one that now feels like a slap. “Leia. What do you think a cadet who’s being shortlisted for a fighter squadron is taught? I’ve known it all my life! Not that it’s the only thing that matter, but that it’s what we do! I’m a pilot, it’s what fleet pilots do. Kill, get killed. Sacrifice themselves. It’s damn incredible that I’ve passed thirty. I know it. I’ve accepted it.”
“Oh. You don’t want to live?”
“That’s my life. I – I get to fly, don’t I? I love it. Even these other missions of yours –”
“But would you ask it of others?”
Paige.
Finn. Rose.
“That’s what we do,” he repeats, but he’s not so convinced. He should have weighted the price they were paying, should have told them…
“Is it adrenaline? Is that what you think you’re all looking for?”
“No! No, it isn’t, it’s the way we serve, it’s – alright, adrenaline, too.” Adrenaline, action, reaction, these moments when you know you move exactly in sync with the whole Galaxy.
“It’s Shara. Isn’t it? You’re older than she ever was, now.”
“Force, Leia!”
She’s teaching, he knows it, but she also wants a hit because she’s hurt and needs to lash out.
“Sorry.”
He’s never liked when people try to explain everything by who your parents were or what they lacked. He’s an adult with a brain able of rational decisions, whatever Leia or Holdo could think. And if there ever was someone who influenced his choices beyond his own conviction of doing the right thing, it’s Leia. Not his parents, as much as he loves them.
He feels her thumb stroke the back of his hand.
“It’s strange,” she says after a while. “I tried to reach across and touch Ben’s mind after he turned, with all the strength they said I had. I prayed the Force – yes I know it doesn’t work this way. I even begged Han to bring him back, may he ever forgive me. But I never woke up with Ben’s name in my mouth.”
“His name’s Kylo Ren now,” Poe spits. He should feel sorry. He’s only vindicated.
“Yes. And you’re not the man to whom I should have brought this up. I’m sorry.”
She’s leaning more heavily against his back so he twists a little to accommodate the curve of her head. There’s a pin digging into the crook of his shoulder.
“Poe, this motion with your hand to your forehead, like you’re doing now. Is it from Kylo Ren?”
His hand was up again. Does he do it that often? His laughter sounds hollow.
“Possibly,” he says. “The headache’s gone now, but Force, did it hurt.”
“He’s not in your head right now, is he?”
Is that possible? The disgust at the idea is nearly too much.
“No,” he says, reassured to know, right at the same time, that his mind is really his. “Just an evil memory. I might feel a little wobbly from too many ships exploding near me, though. My ears are still ringing.”
“Indeed? You were shouting more than usual today, I noticed.”
“And you?” he asks out of a sincere need to know, coupled with wanting to get as far as possible from any Kylo Ren talk. “How do you feel, after –?” He can’t bring himself to say aloud what they all witnessed. It was too otherworldly, too impossible, too inhuman. He’s realising Force users scare him when he sees them at work too closely.
She shivers. “I couldn’t leave you all,” she only says. She doesn’t elaborate.
“I’m glad,” Poe says.
“But one day I won’t come back. I feel like the last relic from ancient times, even more now that Luke –”
“No, don’t –”
“The thing is, Poe. You aren’t just a pilot we send up in space when the need arises.”
“I know, I know. Got the point. Lost my ship anyway. Does it always feel so heavy? This seeing the whole picture business?”
“Now more than before. It’s worse than I ever – I don’t know. It’s age speaking, I guess. Losses. That’s why the Resistance needs people like you. Young, hopeful... You still see a path, don’t you?”
“Ha. Up to the next stop, good enough?”
“Tell me you see further than this.” She doesn’t shout, but his ears ring nonetheless. Or maybe that’s because of the explosions.
Alright. Not the time for banter. “I know what the goal is. I know how to begin. I think we’ve already begun, thanks to your brother, Rey and all the people in this ship. As for what’s in front of us, the key systems, the core worlds, the main mining areas, they’re lost. Maybe for years. Decades. And you know what? I’m guessing that there are a lot of people who aren’t so sad about it over there. But I think the First Order is too myopic to realise what lies beyond them.”
“Oh. You think there are other Force users beyond?”
“I feel they were too focused on one Force user. We were, too, as if the name of Skywalker had been the key to all problems in the Galaxy – no offense meant!”
“None taken.”
“I don’t know if being strong with the Force is enough to hold the power, Galaxy-wide. Or at least that’s when the Force isn’t too present that I can find a function for us regular people, so that’s what I’m focusing on – you know you make me feel like I’m back in school, don’t you? – I mean. The non-human. The oppressed. Like it felt in Yavin in my youth, you remember? The cultures who create and those who make-do with nothing, those who grow things and merge into the cycles of life, who marvel at the universe and at each other, who exchange. Who can unite. Against – against them. Him.” He feels his hand fly to his forehead, makes himself stop. “Hell. I’m telling myself one step at a time, but I see what we have to overcome, and lemme tell you, it’s more daunting than facing a destroyer with just BB-8 and a fighter ship.”
“Not something you can fly against and shoot down, huh.”
“Not really.”
“I knew I was right to trust you, son.” The last she said very low, and again he’s not sure he heard right. He hopes so. Then Leia breaks the moment by groaning and swearing under her breath.
“Damn. My back didn’t ache last time I sat here,” she grumbles.
“You probably didn’t feel the need to sit all twisted and, huh, proper-like,” he says. “If I may say.”
“Oh, you may say. Your hand’s in mine and my head’s on your shoulder, aren’t they?”
“Well, then why don’t you lie down if sitting up is uncomfortable? I’m told my thighs make a decent cushion.”
“Who said that? Decent, that’s unfair. Your thighs are –” she makes a sort of expanding handwave and utters this small ironical huff with a tilt of her head he so loves. Then she nods. “I’ll take you on the offer, Poe. Thanks.”
Poe can’t say the new position feels more comfortable. But Leia looks more relaxed, especially when he takes off his jacket and rolls it to cushion the step between the bench and his legs. That’s all good.
And so he has to put his foot in his mouth, of course.
“Do you think all our ships could have regrouped and jumped to lightspeed before that destroyer’s cannons finished loading and shot the Raddus?” he asks. “When I was done goading Hux?”
Seems he does want that debrief, after all. And the lashing that’s sure to come. He feels Leia tense.
“General?” he adds, because he’s an idiot. She has her head on his lap and yet she still feels intimidating.
“Still a sore point, Captain?” she asks. “You disobeyed orders.”
“You’ve counted on me disobeying orders in the past,” he says, unable to hold the bitterness in. “More than once.”
“Not this time! Dammit, Poe, I’ve counted on you using your head before! Not disobeying orders for the beauty of it! That’s a behaviour you wouldn’t accept from any of your pilots!”
He could count on her finding the source of his guilt, right away. “Finn bypassed my orders,” he says. “On Crait. I hated that. By the stars, it was –”
“Horrible, wasn’t it?”
“Horrible. I thought he was dead for sure. For nothing. I don’t understand why –”
And he’ll have to go to Rose post-haste, to – do what? Thank her for Finn’s life although he’s got no right to do? Mop her brow and give her, what, how would he find flowers on the Falcon? Offer her a bunch of Porg feathers? Do these critters only have feathers?
“Then you know how I felt,” Leia says, cutting his train of thoughts. “I think most of our ships would have jumped. The Raddus and the frigates for sure, the fastest fighters and bombers too. The shuttles were already all in. We’d have had losses, but not as heavy as what your attack cost us.”
“But… ?” Poe says, hoping she’ll continue his thought.
“You want me to say it, don’t you? All right. ‘But,’ with the lightspeed tracker they put on our tail, at the precise moment we exited hyperspace the destroyer would have killed us all.”
Poe nods. Leia shakes his head.
“But nobody could have seen it at the time,” she says, remnants of her old rage still echoing, metallic, in her voice. “Not me. Certainly not you. Don’t tell me you shut me off the comm because you had weighted all the pro and cons. You just wanted to add a destroyer to your kills.”
“I wanted to show them that it wasn’t because we were smaller that we weren’t dangerous!”
“For sure. And the next time they’d have upgraded their tactics and we’d have been less dangerous, even smaller, and even deader.”
“Sometimes,” Poe insists like the fool he is, “you have to fight even though you know you can’t win.”
“For honour?” She doesn’t sound thrilled by the idea.
“Call it that if you want. So that you remain yourself until the end. Or maybe because there might be survivors and bystanders for whom it will mean a lot that you stood up against the bullies.”
“Headstrong, Amilyn called you,” Leia muses. He feels her neck slacken against his thigh. “That you are. Tell you what, Captain. This is not the time to fight for posterity. Yet. And something else: it’s true what they say, that you are a luck magnet.”
Poe can’t help the grunt. It sounded anguished, he feels ashamed to realise.
“If I was a luck magnet, Finn and Rose’s plan, the plan that I enabled, would have worked! The Force knows we needed it!”
“One-in-a-million chances are just that, Poe. Sometimes we have to try. Most often they fail. Oh, I know it feels obscene saying it now, luck. But if you hadn’t disobeyed me, for doubtful reasons, we’d be all dead. So thank you.”
Her hand goes up, caresses his jaw. He really needs to shave. She goes on. “It was a lapse, Poe. I know you’re better than this. I’ve seen you lead on Crait. And we’re damn lucky your lapse was exactly what we needed. I’ll even acknowledge that the bombers’ sacrifice and your stunt against the cannons rallied the survivors and even some bystanders, if I heard the comms right.”
“That stunt cost me Holdo’s trust! And with it… I disobeyed her, too.”
“Ha. You disliked her from the start. Oh, don’t look so affronted! Didn’t you?”
“You weren’t there!”
“I knew her well. I know you. Enough to guess.”
Dead heroes deserve to be acknowledged. Poe tries.
“She sacrificed herself for the Resistance. She was loyal, and courageous. She was able to keep a cool head and think of a sound plan. She saw everything I was too far up my own ass to see.”
“And you’re still seething about the way she treated you.”
Poe allows himself to remember. Her aloof stance, her glacial stare, the way her speeches to the crew dealt them platitudes and no facts at all. He tries a light laughter that sounds fake.
“She made me feel so much like that coarse boy from the outer rim, the one you trust with a wrench but not with strategy,” he says. “Like it was back in navy school. Force I hated that kind of officers.”
He thinks some more. She was loyal. Bright. Hated Stormtroopers and the First Order like the best of them. She had no reason to distrust him that much, Yavin-born or not. Then he remembers the Finalizer. Being unconscious on that chair, that droid torturing him and doing who knows what else? And Kylo Ren in his head, tumbling down all his defences.
“The tracker,” he says, jumping half up, hitting his head on the ladder and startling Leia. “The lightspeed tracker. There had to be a spy. She thought it was me? That they did something to me when I got caught? Is that why she didn’t tell anybody anything? Didn’t tell me anything? Oh no. No, no, no! Leia, tell me I didn’t set up that tracker! They couldn’t have done that to me! Fuck. Finn told me they condition their Stormtroopers. Could they make me do things, I don’t know, in my sleep? You said Kylo Ren could be in my head. Leia, please, tell me it can’t – No!”
Leia sits up, facing him, and takes his face in her hands. He’s surprised she’s not making a shushing sound. Her eyes are very brown boring into his own – he’s always liked the colour – and nearly too intense.
“Are you looking into my head?” he asks with an involuntary recoil.
“I would never,” she says. “Never.”
Her tone is so definite and so cold that it pulls him back in the moment and grounds him, and that’s when he really sees the grief in her eyes. And when he knows that the comfort that she’s been needing, that he’s felt so unable to give, is finally something he can find inside himself.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he says, pulling her to him. “I’m sorry for your son. I know you loved him.”
“I did.”
“Some people you love and you can’t help. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, Poe.”
She’s breathing heavily against his chest and he lets the moment stretch on. Reality will catch up with them soon enough.
“If there’s even a remote chance that I’m their mole, I have to go,” he says finally. He doesn’t think he is. He doesn’t feel any different – beside the grief. He knows he kept fighting the First Order with all he had. If his decisions weren’t sound, it’s because of his lack of judgement, not because they influenced him – or is it?
“I don’t think you are,” Leia says. “I’d accept the risk. The spy was at work before you were captured or they wouldn’t have known about D’Qar on time. Besides, you didn’t touch nor approach the Raddus before you landed in it with Black One. And we made sure there was nothing physical implanted in you when you came back.”
“And if Kylo Ren…”
“Kylo Ren. No. Listen, Poe. Even if controlling a mind distantly is feasible, if you feel your mind is yours then he isn’t in there. That boy always needed everyone to acknowledge his achievements. If he was in, you can be sure he’d be bragging.”
“How can you be sure he’s not bragging inside?”
“I’d know.”
“Holdo couldn’t. I mean know I wasn’t compromised. She said I had sent a Stormtrooper away when I spoke about Finn and Rose. I’m sure she thought –”
“Vice-Amiral Holdo thought her plan needed secrecy.”
“And that prevented her to tell us we had a destination, even if she couldn’t reveal how and when? Instead of just babbling vague metaphors about hope?”
“I’m sorry. Amilyn Holdo was – Force. Amilyn Holdo was a friend, one of the very few I had in the Imperial Senate, one who was sympathetic to our cause, and as you saw she didn’t waver. So what I’m going to say… Ah. Mind if I lie down again? Your thighs do feel comfortable.”
“Sure.”
The Senate. He remembers her impeccable class, her crisp diction. Of course.
Leia clears her voice “So. What I’m going to say isn’t to demean her, it’s – oh, hell. I’m about to badmouth a dead friend. In the hope you understand her.”
“The Senate, huh.”
“Some of us in the Resistance are – were born privileged. You guessed she was. Oh, her world wasn’t particularly attracted to the Dark, rather the opposite. But they were passive, absorbed in the delicacies of their perfect life. She thought about it and what’s so wonderful about her is that she came to the conclusion she had to do more. She had the right ideas, Poe, even though she wasn’t directly impacted by the evilness of the Empire. And she acted upon them.”
“But?”
“But. She heard about Finn and called him a Stormtrooper. She called you Hotshot and Flyboy and adored you because you were such an embodiment of reckless, instinctive fighting. You were so romantic.”
“Yeah, well, commanding a wing or even a squadron asks for a little more than instinct.”
“Yes, but she’d been brought up to think people fit into categories. Oh, as an adult, she understood it was wrong. But understanding and feeling are different things, you see what I mean? Coarse Outer Rim boy? A category. Brainwashed Stormtrooper, another. Ground technician. Hotshot, Flyboy. And none of these have what it takes to be a leader, a strategist. She wouldn’t have trusted you with her plan and she wasn’t able to listen to what you had to say, which it seems you correctly guessed. Just as she didn’t trust the crew.”
“Didn’t she realise, trust or not, that the crew had to be included somehow? You – you’re not like that. You were brought up the same and – fuck, there’s something called empathy and thank the Force it has nothing to do with upbringing!”
“Maybe a little,” Leia says, sounding far away. Then her whole face contracts into something painful. “But not always.” Somehow, Poe’s hand has wedged itself in the crook of her shoulder, and she covers it with hers. “Anyway that’s how she was. I’m sorry you two were so-- incompatible. We all have our shortcomings.”
What are Poe’s own? A problem with authority, certainly. When it’s not Leia. Trouble reining himself in and not following his impulses? He understands he has to think about the big picture, but does he feel it?
“I trusted the people here with the choice of the Falcon’s touchdown,” Poe says, wondering about spies and an all-knowing Kylo Ren.
“Do you feel comfortable about it?”
Poe grimaces. “Comfortable? No. To be honest, I know my history with spies isn’t great. But I still think that if a spy was dumb enough to stay with us when they thought us cornered then they’ve got as many chances as anyone else to be dead by now. What worries me is how recognisable and traceable a ship the Falcon is.”
“Yes,” Leia nods. “Han said so too.”
“Rey, Chewbacca and I have set up meeting points with Pava, Wexley and the others before we reach our goal. I’m thinking of scattering the survivors some of the ships we still have. The others will scout ahead and at worse if it’s a trap then our enemies will only get the Falcon and a skeleton crew.”
“And not Rey. They can’t have Rey.”
“Yeah. Although she won’t like it. She’s our real hope, isn’t she? Her, you. The Force users. We’re just decoys.”
“Don’t say that. We are what remains when the mighty Jedi come back.”
“You’ll tell her? That she can’t stay?”
“I will.” she sighs. “I wish I had been there when you and Amilyn clashed.”
A vision of a drifting, frost-covered Leia makes Poe shiver. He shifts to cocoon her better, wonder if it’s his imagination or if she’s truly radiating cold.
“You were there,” he whispers into her hair. “I still don’t know how it was possible. Leia, you – by the Force, you came back.”
“I should have done better. Felt him, Ben, earlier. Poe my son, Forces showups aren’t what’s important. I should have been awake!”
“You were there. You’re still here. That’s what matters.”
“Force tricks like that, they drain you. They kill you. Luke died this way, it was never Ben! He projected himself on Crait, only an image, but so real that I could feel the warmth of his hands. Took more strength than he had.”
She is cold and Poe fights not to let the panic rise.
“Are you drained? Leia, are you –” dying? Dead? A Force ghost already?
“Tired and cold,” Leia says with a smile that’s wobbling a little. “And worried about the price I’m going to pay. I wish I knew more, or at least that Luke had thought to send me some of his books.”
“Stay with me,” Poe says, gathering her closer. “Stay.”
“Yes,” she says, and maybe she feels already a little warmer.
After a while, he realises he’s humming a song, some kind of lullaby.
“Is it one of Shara’s?” Leia asks.
“One of Kes’s. Shara was loving and demonstrative, but not very tender.”
“Poe?”
“Yes?”
“There should be a blanket under the seat. Han was –”
“I know, resourceful.”
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes.”
The blanket is warm and not as musty as he feared. He wraps Leia in and watches her skin tone shift slowly from unearthly green to rosy.
She twists up, raises an eyebrow, waits for his nod. They kiss on the mouth.
It’s the most tender, least sexual kiss he ever shared.
“I’m still grieving Han,” she says.
He smiles. “I’m still in love with Finn.”
“Foolish boy.”
“Believe me I know.”
He helps her lie down again. After a while, she sleeps, her head on his jacket. Mother, he’d like to say, and he know Mama Shara would approve of the address if not of the kiss. Still, it’s not exactly that.
He kisses her on the cheek and climbs up the ladder as silently as he can.
“General,” he whispers.