He wakes in the middle of the night. Gasps for breath, heart pounding in his throat. His curls cling to his forehead, skin sticky and overwarm. His hands shake and the sheets are a tangle around his waist. When he rubs the sleep from his eyes, they sting and run. His eyelashes clump together.
Images of flames and bolts of blue and blood and black and white recede from his mind in startled fits.
That’s a new one by him.
He doesn’t usually remember his dreams.
*
“Might I have a word?” PZ-4CO says, as polite as she is tall, which is to say: very.
Poe watches his people filter out of central command, envy warm in his chest. Only General Organa lingers, bent over a map display, just out of hearing. Far enough that PZ-4CO can’t possibly be speaking to her. Perhaps the droid’s on the fritz? “Sure you don’t want Snap?” he asks, gesturing vaguely at the door he’d like to exit, too.
He stifles a yawn with the back of his other hand.
“No, Commander Dameron,” she replies, pleasant. “It is you with whom I wish to speak.”
“I’m not really…” He sighs, crossing his arms, rubs at his cheek with the heel of his palm. Intelligence is Snap’s game. Poe’s the guy they point at the intelligence once it’s gathered. He and PZ just aren’t close the way she and Snap are. But, well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “Sure, Peaze. What can I do for you?”
“Miss Rey and Master Skywalker will arrive within twenty-three hours,” PZ says, matter-of-fact. No doubt keeping herself from being perfectly precise on purpose.
“Twenty-two hours, fifty-three minutes.” He shrugs, a mental clock clicking away in the back of his mind. He’d been there when Rey’d commed them with the details. He knows exactly how long it’ll be until she’s back. “Or so I’ve heard.”
“Quite,” PZ answers, inclining her large, shiny head. Her visual system dims in acknowledgment, almost like eyes blinking.
“We’ve got the main hangar all cleared out and the jammers are ready. They’ll be fine coming in. The First Order won’t even know the Millennium Falcon’s here.”
“Yes, I’ve read your report.” She turns, old metal joints creaking as she looks toward General Organa. “I am satisfied on those counts.”
Poe frowns, sucks at the inside of his cheek. Runs down a mental checklist of the things he hasn’t done yet. There’s a lot on it. But none of it should concern PZ. “So, what’s the problem? We missing something out there?”
“No.”
For an intelligence officer, he thinks, not quite charitable, you’re not terribly forthcoming.
“This is awkward,” she says finally. Her attention drifts once again to General Organa. “You are close with the general, are you not?”
Poe locks his eyes on PZ’s face so he doesn’t do something rude, like roll his eyes at the ceiling. “I don’t know how she likes her ritzk—” Medium-rare with a squeeze of kiflah juice, so that’s not, strictly speaking, true. “—but she probably got me out of a court martial, so I’d say so.” Whether the reverse is true might be another thing entirely. General Organa is nothing if not a consummate professional. Growing uncomfortable, he lowers his voice, leans in. “Where are you going with this, PZ?”
“She is troubled, I think, by Master Skywalker’s return,” PZ replies, forcing Poe to do all the conversational heavy lifting himself. Snap does this, too, sometimes. Maybe it’s mandatory in spook school. But, unlike with Snap, he can’t order her to drop the innuendo and get to the point. Or tell her to cut the gossip altogether.
What do you want me to do about it? I shouldn’t even be hearing this. It’s not my business. He pinches the bridge of his nose. Of course she’s troubled. Who wouldn’t be? “Have you mentioned this to anyone else?” The man’s a kriffing asshole.
Affronted, PZ shakes her head, metal bits squeaking. “No, Commander.”
“Good,” he answers, pointing at her. “Keep it that way.”
“But I am not the only one who’s noticed.” Poe doesn’t know PZ well, not at all, but he’s pretty good at parsing droid mannerisms and that’s definitely a note of petulance in her voice.
Poe’s not sure which part annoys him more, that he hadn’t seen it for himself or that someone had decided to breach her privacy to tell him about it. Either way, the knowledge sits heavy across the back of his neck and itches between his shoulder blades.
“It doesn’t matter. Just…” He waves his hand around, burdened by the unbeatable realities of a churning gossip mill. He’d take a squadron of TIE fighters alone any day of the week over that. “I don’t know. Change the subject if it comes up again.
“And Peaze? The general’s business to hers, not yours or mine or anyone else’s.”
*
“Something’s eating at you,” Finn says, bumping shoulders with him. His fork glints in Poe’s peripheral vision, dives toward his plate of klaat-spiced mossa.
Poe’s own fork trudges along, doing its duty as much out of spite as habit. And when Poe takes a bite, he does so with as much gusto as he can muster. Just to prove nothing’s ‘eating at him.’ “Not really,” he says with unnatural perkiness. “Just a long day.”
“Uh huh,” Finn replies. “So this whole—” Instead of coming up with a witty rejoinder, he pulls a face. The skin around his temples tightens and his jaw clenches. He frowns, a theatrical twist that gives him a few new sets of wrinkles. He looks, frankly, ridiculous. “—thing. That’s just the result of a long day?”
“Yep.” The muscles in his cheeks tense as he smiles, aching with how thoroughly untruthful the expression is. He’s usually better at cajoling himself into a good mood. And, when he fails, Finn accomplishes it for him. But something about Finn’s cheer—and of course he’s happy, he should be happy, in eighteen hours and thirty-two minutes Rey will be back—sets resentment smoldering in Poe’s gut, nasty and unworthy.
It steals what little appetite he has.
And Poe might be pissed, but he’s not pissed enough to destroy even a small fraction of Finn’s joy by explaining his foul mood. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be pissed enough to do that. Not about anything. Not even Luke Skywalker’s miraculous return can make him do that.
He holds onto that thought. He might need it before too long.
Finn scans his face for a long moment, subdued, maybe not troubled exactly, but a distant cousin of it. “You’d tell me if it was serious, right?”
“Sure,” he answers, clapping Finn on the shoulder and squeezing, both grateful and sick. “Yeah.”
And because Poe’s never done anything to damage the trust they’ve built, never lied or misdirected or deceived Finn about anything, Finn takes him at his word. Fully.
If Poe was the kind of guy who kept a running tally, this’d be another mark against Luke Skywalker.
*
The weight of the blaster doubles, triples in his hand. And he kills not three or four or five Stormtroopers out of dozens, but all of them. Neat. Precise. Catching each in the most vulnerable places. Just under the helmet. The open sides. Even under the armpit. One falls, knee blowing to bits as he catches the soldier’s leg from behind.
Lor San Tekka is still dead. The village burns. But this time so do the Stormtroopers.
So does Finn FN-2187.
But at least that damned map is safe.
*
Finn vibrates at his side, head tilted toward the sky as his body shifts around. Nine minutes, twelve seconds. No doubt he’s keeping track, too. But Poe’s attention sticks with General Organa, gauging her moment-to-moment reactions. Her eyes shine, the skin around them a little redder than he’s ever seen, redder even than after General Solo… She looks worn out, but exhilarated. Ready. And eager.
It doesn’t take Force sensitivity to tell that she’s excited. Happy. He can’t blame her, but also he can’t say he understands how she could feel anything but dread at this moment. Anything but bitterness and anger. The same bitterness and anger Poe feels.
He doesn’t know what it’s like to have a sibling though, so perhaps he doesn’t have the right to think anything at all. All he knows is he hates seeing the general like this. She relies on herself so much. It’s… distracting to think she might need someone else. Might need him. Despite what he’s done to her.
It’s not jealousy that tangles in his chest, never that. But a proprietary concern… probably.
Finn’s foot taps, dragging Poe’s thoughts back to the moment at hand. He fights back a yawn, turning his head into his elbow to fake a cough. He peers up at the sky, searching for the telltale streak of light indicative of a starship’s final approach. It ought to be up there. Any minute now…
He nudges Finn in the side, lifts his arm and points. “See that?” he says, head bent close enough to Finn’s to smell the sitf on his breath, minty and clean. Finn nods in response. “That’ll be her. Approach in six minutes or so, I’d say.”
But while Finn remains fixated on that shimmering smudge, Poe’s eyes search the general’s. And what he finds there is more hope than he’s ever seen her express. Like, until this moment, she hadn’t actually thought they’d get anywhere with this fight. Like Luke Skywalker, all on his own, can turn the tide of war.
Poe would be offended if it wasn’t also, very possibly, true. He’s heard the stories. He knows what Luke Skywalker is capable of.
Too bad he’s months, even years, too late.
What could Luke Skywalker have done for the people they’ve already lost?
*
Poe scrubs at Black One’s undercarriage, the entrenched grime of combat swirling and bubbling beneath stiff, soapy bristles. No matter how thoroughly his ground crew cleans her up, the sonics can only do so much. Sometimes, you just gotta get in there and do it yourself. He lifts a wet rag to swipe at the mess above his head, his body supine, a high stack of crates beneath his back. Water threatens to drip on him, but he’s done this often enough to know when the danger is real and when gravity’s just reminding him who’s boss.
Though the bristles scrape loudly, they can’t drown out the sound of approaching footsteps. Poe avoids frowning up at Black One, but doesn’t find himself much inclined to acknowledge the interloper. There’s a reason he’s scouring his ship for scum in the darkest corner of the hanger, the light he might usually have gotten blocked by the Millennium Falcon’s massive, tragically ugly frame. And that’s because the interloper has no reason to be here. Not now. Not while everyone is still celebrating his arrival.
Unfortunately, the interloper didn’t get that comm and compounds the problem by speaking. “So Leia wasn’t wrong about you.”
When all else fails, Poe thinks, tossing out a general distress call to whatever deities might be listening, be polite. “Master Skywalker.”
“Luke, please,” Skywalker answers, bland. Most people, there’d be a smile hidden somewhere in their tone at the mark of respect. Or distaste at the unequal footing such a mark bestows. But not Skywalker. No. He is utterly indifferent to his own status. “Unless you’d prefer Commander Dameron.”
“You can call me whatever you like, sir,” he answers, pushing himself upright. Ducks forward to avoid hitting his head on his ship. The rag squelches under his hand. Muck soaks into his pants, cool and disgusting against his flank. He tosses the rag into the bucket at his side, the liquid inside sloshing. Probably should’ve suited up to do this.
He hops down from his improvised platform and wipes his hands down his thighs. Leaves streaks of grease in their wake. “What can I do for you?” he asks, palms itching to reach out and offer an instinctive shake. “Hope you don’t mind if I don’t…?” he asks, lifting his hands. Pretends he cares about ensuring the pristine gray of Skywalker’s new robes.
“Not at all,” Skywalker answers, his eyes scanning past Poe to the X-wing behind him. “She’s a beauty.”
The last time someone complimented him, he became Poe’s best friend. But Luke Skywalker isn’t Finn and Poe’s not impressed even though he obviously has taste or enough sense to pretend he does.
“Why the paint job?” he asks, stepping forward. It takes every inch of discipline in Poe’s body to not insinuate himself between Skywalker and his ship.
He shrugs. Raps Black One’s long, lean body with his knuckles. “You’re not really here to ask about Black One’s paint job, are you?”
“What makes you say that?”
“I’ve never once been asked that question.” He meanders, haphazard, toward the reason General Organa’s all twisted up right about now. He’d like to figure the guy out, but it’d probably take twenty years just to understand a fraction of him. “No one cares about the paint job.”
“I flew X-wings once,” he answers, like that explains it. And, Poe supposes, for people like Poe, it does. Or it should. “You never really lose the taste for it.”
“I knew that.”
“Do you?” Luke’s eyes crinkle, not quite happy, but darkly amused maybe. The way a litha is amused by the flittering escape attempts of a thinahe caught under its paw. Poe’s hand curls into a fist at the suggestion that he finds this funny.
“I just can’t imagine the great Luke Skywalker being interested in a fighter these days.” The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as he passes, energy crackling in the vicinity of Skywalker’s left hand. But he does nothing with the energy, not even acknowledging it.
It’s not the fairest thing he’s ever said, sure. And if it gets back to the general, he’s a goner, but something about the slack-jawed look of defeat, the sudden chill, the tense set of Skywalker’s shoulders makes it worth it. It’s the easiest win Poe’s ever had and that makes it worthless.
But someone has to remind him what’s at stake.
If every person with deaths on their conscience ran, there wouldn’t be a Resistance worth a damn in a fight. You deal as best you can and move on. You don’t take your talents to a Force-damned island and hide out while other people risk their lives and die for the chance to bring you back. And you sure as hell don’t leave your sister to pick up the pieces alone.
“Come back out on a sunny day, Luke,” he calls, backing toward the base, voice a cool sort of friendly, nothing Luke could use as proof of anything. It makes its point regardless. “I’ll let you take her up if you’d like.”
*
What would it be like if he hadn’t learned he could be broken by a child playacting in a mask?
*
Poe lingers in the general’s doorway, leaning in and knocking on the inside wall of her office, perplexed and annoyed by Skywalker’s presence. The pair of them here. Laughing. He pastes a grin on his face, because that’s what he does now. Apparently. “You wanted to see me, General?” he asks. Inclining his head at Skywalker, he adds, “Master Skywalker.”
“You still haven’t broken him of that?” Leia asks, smiling crookedly at her brother.
“Once,” he admits, rueful. “Guess it didn’t stick.”
Poe avoids narrowing his eyes only by the skin of his teeth.
“That’s okay,” she replies. “Sometimes I’m not even sure he knows I have a first name.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s General,” Poe says, forcing a joviality he doesn’t feel. Not his wittiest retort, but, well. He hasn’t been much in the mood for joking lately. “General.”
“Funny,” General Organa replies, dust dry. “If this whole ‘best pilot in the Resistance’ thing doesn’t work out for you, you ought to consider the cantina circuit.”
“It’d certainly pay better, ma’am,” he replies, still hanging in the doorway, a recalcitrant kid. Or an outsider looking in. He’s not quite sure which he feels more like. Neither prospect holds any particular charm for him.
He’s not used to seeing anyone sitting in one of the chairs she keeps for guests. Not unless it’s an official meeting.
“Poe, take a seat. I’m getting a backache just looking at you.” The only seat, of course, is mere feet from where Skywalker is sitting.
“Yes, ma’am.” He’s too old to scuff his feet against the floor, but that doesn’t stop the urge to do so from leeching up his leg.
“And cut this ma’am business. I didn’t haul you down here to ma’am me.”
“Ah,” he says, stepping forward, careful to avoid looking at Skywalker. “Right.”
Skywalker climbs to his feet with such a deliberate slowness that it almost hurts Poe to watch. Compared to the general, he looks so… drained. He knows they’re the same age. But it sure doesn’t seem like it from where Poe’s standing.
Skywalker claps him on the shoulder as he passes. “Always good to see you, Commander,” he says, an ironic edge to his tone. Like somewhere underneath the passive exterior, there’s still a sense of humor buried underneath.
He leaves. Quietly.
“So,” she says, crossing her arms on her desk, her hands pressed against the old wood. It’s a nice desk as far as desks go. “I hear you’re giving my brother a hell of a time.”
Before he can answer, she slides her chair back and leans down, retrieving—something from a drawer.
A pair of glasses. And a bottle of… “Corellian whiskey?” He tilts his head to read the embossed label, black and gold, and whistles to mitigate the nerves setting up shop in his sternum. He doesn’t actually recognize the brand, but. “That’s… real expensive stuff.” He peers at her. “How much trouble am I in exactly?”
“When your husband—” And because she’s just about the strongest person he’s ever met, second only to his mother, her voice doesn’t hitch. Much. “—was a smuggler, things like the price of alcohol stop mattering so much.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” he says, hesitant, instead of I’m sorry and I wish he was here to drink it with you instead. She pours him a more than generous serving and pushes it across the desk toward him. His hand grips loosely around the cool, smooth glass, but doesn’t lift it. He can’t so much as breathe.
“You’re not in trouble,” she says after a thoroughly dramatic pause. “I want to thank you.”
“Thank me? For giving your brother hell?”
“Maybe a little bit.” She brings her glass to her lips, slow. “I can’t quite bring myself to do it and everyone else is too scared or awed to try.”
Poe swallows and nods, trying—and failing—to understand. “I’m sorry, General. I really shouldn’t…” Judge? Act like a disgruntled wampa? “It’s not my place to—”
“Not your place? A village burned because we were looking for him. You were taken into First Order custody because you were the one looking for him. Maz’s cantina crumbled to the ground. I lost half my fleet and the Republic…” She doesn’t hang her head, but she looks defeated, like she’d do it if she could. If it was in her nature.
“It’s not his fault those things happened,” Poe says, weak, more than a little aware of just how hypocritical that sounds coming from him. He bites his lip, mentally urging himself to keep his mouth shut for the next little while. It doesn’t work. ”It’s not yours either.”
The general barks a laugh so dry and bitter, Poe can’t even recognize it as hers. He winces at the sound of it and finally sips at the spicy, dry liquor, like drinking woodsmoke. It hardly burns going down, far smoother than anything else you’d find on the base. Guilt worms its way through him for having received the privilege.
“Poe, you don’t know how much I want to believe that.” She tilts her head, sloughing off the grief as she always does, a struggle that Poe sees far too often in others and recognizes much too intimately. “And how much I want to push my dear brother’s head through a wall regardless.”
Poe doesn’t know what that kind of violence-laden fondness feels like, but he can guess it’s far more complicated than the general’s slight smile makes it out to be. His heart squeezes its way up his throat, lodges itself where he can’t breathe around it. He hates floundering, absolutely detests it, but it seems like that’s all he’s done lately.
They’re all a little in over their heads. Poe more than most. He’s not used to it.
“Well, anyway,” she says, waving off this—moment with a wry shake of her head. “This might be presumptuous of me, but I wanted to let you know that you don’t have to like him. I don’t expect you to and neither does he. Keep showing him the respect you’d give anyone in his position, that’s all you have to do. Not that I have any doubts you will.”
“Of course,” he answers, nodding. How did this conversation got so far away from him?
“Good.” She leans back in her chair. “Now why don’t we get back to safer conversational ground, hmm? Like just how outgunned and outmanned we are when compared with the First Order. That’s always a good one.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answers, bizarrely grateful for the reprieve. Says a lot that their almost inevitable doom is preferable to A Conversation About Luke Skywalker. “If it makes you feel any better, I like to think we’re only as screwed as we let ourselves be.”
*
The thing is—and really, this has always been Poe’s problem one way or another—now that he has permission to dislike the guy, he finds it a lot more difficult. The worst part is, he’s pretty sure General Organa hadn’t done that on purpose. Still, it’s a little awkward crossing paths with the guy in the mess, no one around to blunt the impact of their meeting. The perils of skulking around the canteen in the off hours.
“Commander Dameron,” Luke says and it’s not unfriendly, but it’s not particularly impressed either. Poe’s not used to that. He’s loved by others or hated by ‘em, mostly the former to his eternal good luck. There’s no ‘not particularly impressed’ when it comes to Poe Dameron.
Poe scans his face, well aware that he’s holding the man up from wherever he’s trying to sit. Which could be anywhere. The guy has a lot of options. He sees wrinkles and regrets and a hard life, well full of guilt. It’s a face more like the general’s than he’d thought at first glance.
He swallows, throat clicking. “You might want to go with the noodles,” he says, nodding toward the service droids waiting to dish out meals in the corner. ”They don’t leave an aftertaste.”
“Not a fan of cilar?” Luke asks, eyebrow cocked. He looks down at the bowl currently balanced between his hands, steam wafting toward the ceiling.
“No, I like it fine,” he says. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he feels all sorts of self-consciousness bubbling up. “But some people don’t. It’s not meant for human taste buds…”
Luke smiles, warming a little, contemplative. “Thank you for the warning,” he says. The way he says it, Poe gets the sense he’s telling Skywalker something he already knows. Which is just… great.
He’s never, ever going to talk to Luke Skywalker again.
“Sure.” Poe mentally orders himself not to arrive at 13:35 again. Just in case this is Skywalker’s regular meal time, that fortune alone hasn’t kept them from meeting here before. “I’ll, uh, see you around.”
“I’m sure you will,” Luke answers, sounding very much like he knows an untruthful pleasantry when he hears one.
It’s not quite at the caliber of Reasons to Hate Luke Skywalker that Poe’s grown accustomed to harboring, but it’ll do in a pinch.
Poe’s never liked it when people he doesn’t know see right through him.
*
Takodana in ruins. A crater where Maz Kanata’s cantina once stood. The forest burning. Static from the comms. No fight on the ground.
There’s nothing and nobody.
Again and again and again he fails. Too far removed to do anything but shoot every proton torpedo in his arsenal at the desolation.
*
“Do you really not like Master Luke?” Rey asks. Poe doesn’t know what it says about the people around him, but he finds it strange that no one is actually taking offense on Luke’s behalf. Almost makes Poe want to argue in his favor.
Almost.
“What?” Poe asks. “Ow, son of a—” He rips his hand away from the wire he’s just shocked himself on. Glares, baleful, at Black One. His mind, reluctant, catches up to what she’s saying. He looks at her and sees a grin splitting her face in two. “No, what are you talking about? Who told you that?”
“No one,” Rey says, bouncing on her toes. “But usually you’re more… you.” She waves her hand around in a way that definitely doesn’t illustrate her point. “Around other people.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” he replies, pushing his way back into Black One’s guts, where it’s safer. He’d take a shock over wherever Rey’s going with this every time. “I’m never not me. You’ve got some funny ideas about how people work, Rey.”
“Oh, come on. You were a one-man welcoming committee when Lando showed up…”
“General Calrissian,” Poe says, starting in on a defense he quickly realizes he doesn’t want to finish. He’s probably already given himself away by calling the man General Calrissian in that tone of voice. Different tack, different tack. Come on, Poe. Think quick. “I seem to recall you were pretty taken with him, too. What’s your point, Rey?”
Not your best.
Rey scoffs and shoves her way into his personal space, reaching into Black One’s open innards. “Here, let me,” she says, pushing him out of the way. “I don’t have a point. I’m just worried about you.”
Poe frowns. She does exactly the same thing to Black One that he’d been doing for himself. But instead of zapping him, the diagnostic software beeps in evident pleasure. “Don’t be,” Poe answers, shame flooding every inch of his body. He sounds pathetic even to his own ears. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Okay,” she replies, easy before going for the knockout. “So then you won’t mind helping me with my training?”
“You’re—wait, what? What training?” Training is Skywalker’s thing. And sometimes Finn’s thing. It’s not a Poe thing. And it’s definitely not a Poe-and-Skywalker thing.
Which is, of course, how he ends up on the field out behind the tarmac, facing down two Jedi anyway. Or one Jedi and one Jedi-to-be. And Finn, who’s perched himself on a couple of crates, heels kicking against them.
Frankly, this whole situation is terrifying. Poe’s reasonable enough to admit it. Facing down Rey on a good day is hard enough. But facing her down when she’s got that determined look on her face? Not so good.
And Luke Skywalker’s got his patented blank sincerity down pat. He’s obviously hiding something. Animosity, probably. Because Poe’s an ass…
This is payback.
Rey steps forward, tiny ball in hand, a club resting on her shoulders.
“What’s going on?” he asks, though he knows perfectly well what both of those things are and why she has them.
Rey lifts her shoulder, the club shifting toward her neck. “You’re the best greenputt player on the base.”
Poe snorts, indelicate. “That says little about me or anyone else.”
But Rey just rolls her eyes. “I’m not asking you to join a professional league. I just need you to hit the ball.”
Poe points at Finn. “Why can’t he do it?”
“Tried already,” Finn calls, pleasant. “I couldn’t even get the ball in the air.”
Poe sighs. There’s no point in asking why Luke Skywalker can’t hit the greenputt ball. It’s probably beneath his dignity or something. “Okay. Fine. What am I doing?”
Rey drops the ball with far more attitude than Poe thinks is necessary and mimes swinging the club at it. She lifts her arm and points toward the horizon, her elbow locked, arm board straight.
Swiping the club from her, he shakes his head. “All right, all right.” He shifts his stance and rolls his shoulders, hunching over. His fingers curl around the grip, awkward. He hasn’t done this in ages, but… “This thing got the auto-retriever active?”
“Doesn’t need it.”
“Oh, okay,” he mutters. “Doesn’t need it. I hope you’re not expecting me to go after the ball when I knock it into the tree line is all I’m saying. Doesn’t need it.”
“You won’t have to,” Rey insists. And that just gets Poe curious, so instead of perfecting his grip, he takes a swing. And once he takes that swing, the club head connects with the ball. And once that club head connects a whole lot of other things happen. Or seem to. All Poe knows is suddenly he’s looking at a greenputt ball suspended a couple of yards ahead of him. At eye level.
“Merciful mother of—you did this?” He steps forward and pokes at the thing. It doesn’t move. Doesn’t so much as shake. When he tries to grab it, it won’t budge, not even when he plants his feet and leans back, pulling with all his weight. “Kid, if I had my way, you’d be in an X-wing cockpit faster than you can say—shit.”
He falls, the ball dislodging itself. Before he can react with anything approaching the grace or quickness he’s had trained into him, he’s the one hanging.
The sound of Rey’s laughter punches through the white noise of certain death currently swishing in his ears. She bounds over, holding out her hand for him, helping him right himself.
“Never mind,” he says, pushing his fingers through his hair. “I don’t want you anywhere near my X-wings.” He doesn’t look to see Skywalker’s reaction. “You’re a menace.”
“Try it again, Commander,” Skywalker says, intruding anyway. “This time she’s going to shut her eyes.” He smiles, just a little bit, when Poe looks up. “And she’s not going to provoke the person who’s been gracious enough to offer her his time.”
“That’s all right,” Poe says, irked despite himself. What right does Luke Skywalker have to rein Rey in? He doesn’t let the voice in the back of his mind remind him that that’s the point of training. She doesn’t even look hurt by the man’s suggestion, but still. He doesn’t want Skywalker to turn Rey into a clone of him, doesn’t want her to be composed and aloof and Jedi-like all the time. “We goof around a lot out here. It’s no big deal—”
Skywalker’s mouth quirks up in affable warning. He may not be speaking, but Poe hears what he’s saying loud and clear anyway.
You don’t know a damned thing about Jedi.
The only consolation is that apparently Jedi don’t know a damned thing about Poe Dameron either.
*
It turns out Luke does take his meal at the same time every day. Which is very good for Poe because otherwise he doesn’t have a clue where he’d find the man. And with nobody around to witness this moment? It’s even better. Bad enough he feels the need to do this. There’s no reason to invite speculation. ”You got the noodles this time,” he says, hitching his spare helmet higher on his waist.
Luke peers up at him, looks so small from Poe’s vantage point, almost frail, but no less amiably indifferent than Poe’s seen before. “The cilar here leaves a hell of an aftertaste.”
“You get used to it,” Poe answers, shifting his weight from foot to foot, “after a while.”
Luke doesn’t answer immediately, weighing his options or savoring that Poe’s come to him with hat in hand or doing something all together different inside that Jedi brain of his. “I guess I’ll have to stick around and find out,” he says finally.
Poe holds the helmet out to Luke, a suggestion. A promise. An invitation at least or a peace offering. Poe wouldn’t go so far as to call it an apology, but it might be that, too. This has gone on long enough. “I’d like to get over myself long enough to believe that. You wanna help me out?”
Luke takes it with far more decency than Poe would were their positions reversed. And maybe that’s exactly what Poe needs from him at this moment because something unclenches inside of him. A tension he hadn’t realized he’s been carrying snaps and releases, leaving a thick veneer of calmness behind, a layer of security against everything that stands against them all here at the base. Luke Skywalker might be the savior they all need. Or he might not. But at this moment, Poe can put all of that aside, cut the man—the man, not the Jedi—some slack.
Sensing the shift maybe, Luke speaks graciously, a little relieved himself perhaps. “Poe, I’d like nothing more.”
*
Starkiller base goes up in a celebratory fireworks display, a reel of explosions without end, Poe’s shot the killing blow.
Poe doesn’t remember a single moment of it.