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Poe Dameron can tell you exactly when BB-8 became the most important droid, one of a kind. It wasn’t when the missing piece of a map to the last Jedi was placed inside his tray. It wasn’t when the quick processes of the small orange and white droid saved Poe from what was sure to be a nasty sneak attack from the First Order. It wasn’t even when the droid overrode the manual controls in Poe’s X-Wing and reset the navigation coordinates saving Poe the embarrassment of being severely off course for his destination. No, for Poe Dameron BB-8 became the most important droid when he had followed the sound of sad soft beeps through a nearly deserted hanger. After moving a few crates and removing an oil stained cloth Poe Dameron became instantly attached to a small round droid with a malfunctioning balancing unit that the Resistance did not have the inclination (or funds) to replace.
Despite being told repeatedly that it wasn’t worth the bother by every mechanic he approached Poe moved BB-8 from the pile of forgotten things and into his bunk. He tried everything he was capable of to fix the droid himself, but he was a pilot and not an engineer. He may have been able to jerry rig his X-Wing when needed, but the delicate workings of droids were beyond him. There was nothing wrong with BB-8 except for the inability to move from one place to another without assistance and BB-8 was still quite capable of assisting Poe during his patrols. Poe just had to do the manual bit of getting BB-8 to the docking point of the X-Wing. A task that proved easier said than done. The round droid turned out to be more difficult to carry than expected.
After a few weeks of lugging the cumbersome droid back and forth from his bunk Poe decided that something needed to be done. His seniority among the pilots and the lackluster recruiting numbers meant that the second bed in his bunk had yet to be filled. They may not have had much in the way of creature comforts but someone had dropped a large cargo of better than average bedding. Perhaps it had not been acquired completely honestly, but most were willing to look past that as they fell asleep in mild comfort. Poe stripped the sheet off of the unused bed and held it up. It would certainly do the trick.
The looks he received the next morning ranged from incredulous and mocking to complete disbelief. Poe was rather proud of himself. The sling held BB-8 comfortably against his chest and barely hampered his movement at all. Certainly it was easier making his way from the bunk to the hanger. For a while all attention was on him as he moved through the base. He even got a gently raised eyebrow from General Organa. He smiled, saluted, and continued on his way.