Chapter Text
The crescent beach cut a green and beige swath into a bay of clear crystal and deep, cool blue. The cries of white, long-tailed birds lilted down from humid skies, though they could hardly be heard over the raucous voices of the beachgoers. Children of a multitude of species screeched and splashed, running about as if they were solar charged and full to bursting with energy. Adults napped and swam, jogged across the rough sand, and danced. There was always dancing on Yavin 4.
Poe laughed as Finn waded awkwardly through the surf as if his legs had turned to duracrete, his hands cupped over his crotch. “You’re doing fine, babe.” He called out, treading water just past the line of swelling waves.
“Are you sure this is okay?” He yelled back, grateful that the water had now surged above his hips and covered him. Poe pushed off from the rocky floor and drifted over to him, floating effortlessly on his back in full and shameless display.
“What, going naked?”
“Yes, you idiot, what else?” Finn laughed, reaching out and tugging at his leg until he was forced into some semblance of modesty.
“It’s Yavin. If you’re not naked on the beach, you’re doing it wrong.”
“But…what if someone sees my…you know…?”
“Your beautiful SUNDRENCHED ASS?” Poe shouted out over the waves and several nearby swimmers laughed.
Finn shook his head though he gave him a grudging grin, and then he buried in him a mighty splash. Poe popped back up with a mouthful of water that he spat in a fountain directly into Finn’s face. They giggled like a pair of children, lost for a moment in sheer, careless fun. Then Poe lunged forwards, swimming out into the deeper, calmer blue, where the bottom was only an azure guess. Finn followed him and silently they tread the mercifully cool water, bobbing gently up and down. Poe inhaled, listening to the surf and the laughter, and he stared wistfully out at the blurry seam where sky met ocean. He felt drawn to that blue line, as he always did; for swimming was little different than flying in his opinion. The colors were so similar he felt he could lift himself up out of the water and go on floating weightlessly into the sky. He smiled to himself and glanced at Finn. He was staring up into blue-purple puffs of cumulous cloud with a peaceful expression that made Poe’s heart swell.
“Well?” Poe asked, and Finn’s eyes dropped to him.
“You were right.” He sighed, “this is pretty great.”
“Uh huh.” Poe nodded with satisfaction.
“Though the whole ‘naked’ thing might take some getting used to.”
“Ah,” he waved an unconcerned hand, scattering bright droplets, “eventually you won’t even think twice about it.”
“Does your dad go swimming like this?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Finn laughed into the water lapping about his chin. “That’s so weird.”
“Why’s it weird?”
“It just is.”
“Okay. Prude.”
“I’m not a prude. I just don’t want to see your dad buck-ass naked.”
“I’ll let him know.”
“Don’t! That’d be even weirder!”
Poe bobbed closer with a wry smile and the next swell of water brought their lips together. “You’re so cute,” he said as they drew apart.
“Well, with my ‘sundrenched ass’ how couldn’t I be?”
Poe winked. “That’s the spirit.”
As they swam Finn studied the hazy rippling of Poe’s arms and hands slowly waving back and forth beneath the clear water. “How’re your wrists today?”
“Good. Swimming really helps—it’s just enough resistance. Nothing like rehab.” He said distastefully.
Finn’s mouth thinned, understanding all too well the pain of rehabilitation. “It’ll be worth it; soon you’ll be cleared to fly again.”
Poe sighed. Flying was in his blood, running deeper than the sea beneath his feet. But right now, the thought gave him no joy. They were five days into their two weeks of mandatory leave, and with the carefree sun beating down and the water lapping cool about their bodies, Poe wished that it could last for years. “Yeah…”
Finn arched a brow, for that was hardly the enthusiastic response he’d been expecting. “Yeah?”
Poe gave him a wan smile. “Sorry. Just…getting shot at again doesn’t sound so fun right now.”
Finn mirrored the smile and he kissed him softly. “I know.”
Poe’s hand found his and squeezed. “Come on—let’s go lay in the sun.”
Like shimmering mirages of sunlight and water, they headed back to shore.
8 Months Later
“Green team forwards!” Finn yelled over a bone-rattling crash of artillery. Hunkered low with his blaster held against his chest, he darted into the cloud of red dust, relying wholly on the electronic readout of his tactical goggles to navigate around chunks of stone and bits of bodies. Teeth grit, Finn darted for a jagged shelf of peeled up pavement and tucked up behind it as returning salvos sparked against the duracreet mere inches from his head. With a low, steady breath he popped up from cover and quickly sniped one of the five men who had taken positions opposite the capitol building of To’merra.
Red light flashed past, as those following in his wake picked off two more Stormtroopers. A voice crackled into his ears. “Major, sniper at .03, balcony on the far left.”
“Copy that. I see her.” Finn muttered as the remaining seven in his strike force joined him against his slab of sheltering duracreet.
“Gold team is in, but they’re experiencing heavy fire from Sinear T5 security droids.”
Finn squinted through the sights of his blaster, leveling it towards the ghostly green shape hovering above his head some 40 meters to his left. He closed his eyes, took a breath, and fired. The green shape jerked and then fell, a leaf from a toppling tree. He did not linger on the body—he could not stand to see the lights let go. “T5 security droids are best at long range combat. Blue Team, is the lower corridor secure?”
An explosion rattled their teeth and Finn shouted into his headset. “Repeat!”
“—we h— taken the corridor.”
“Set your telemetry beacons to Gold team’s position. Gold team, fall back to secondary location. Draw the droids after you and leave your SBD’s in your wake. Detonate as you can!”
“Copy, Major!”
Come on, come on, where is air support? Finn threw a look at the sky, but it was shrouded from him.
The ground shook, and shouting burst through the explosions in cries of panic.
“We have AT-WTs, coming in from Nepori Avenue!”
Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. “Hold your ground! Repeat, do not withdrawl! Do not let them get to the capitol building! Green team, after me!” He stood and barreled through the grit and choking dust, trusting absolutely that his team of five had his back. Nepori Street, Nepori Street. He ran, darting behind cover as he could and returning fire, recalling all that he could of the city’s layout. His eyes widened behind his dust-smeared goggles as he spied towering, pipe-riddled cisterns of murky yellow. The atmospheric refineries! They should be full of CO!
“Green team,” he yelled over his shoulder, “concentrate all fire on the refinery cisterns!”
“Major,” Sedhi called from his side, “the explosions could rip the whole block apart!”
“And if we’re lucky, we’ll take those walkers with it! Bowen, any friendlies in this block?”
“No readings. We might want to put on our filters though, if we’re really gonna do this.”
“Agreed,” Sedhi nodded emphatically, reaching for the mask hanging at her belt loop.
“Where is air support? Heavy walkers should be their job, not ours!” Loa growled.
Finn’s mouth thinned as he snugged on his respirator. If it was Poe, there’s no way they would be this late. “Well, they’re not here, so it just became our job! Loa and Vic, you two keep your eyes peeled for ground fire. Sedhi, Bowen, and Lee, let’s go!”
He rounded the corner of the broad war-pocked avenue as Loa and Vic fanned out. Far in the distance, five looming shapes moved darkly through the dust, shimmering like monstrous mirages. They stood tall on spindly legs and the rasping metallic clatter of their footfalls raised goosebumps up Finn’s arms; his legs vibrated from the sheer tonnage hitting the ground. Boxy heads swiveled to and fro, sophisticated sensors peeling through metal, stone, and flesh as they scanned for prey. Mounted within the AT-WT’s blank ‘faces’ were twin turbolaser cannons, mag pulse warhead launchers, and particulate bomb launchers. The five machines would be more than enough to wrest control of To’merra away from the Resistance’s tenuous grip. In another fifty feet they’d be in range to unleash their armaments upon them. In forty feet, they would be directly beneath the smooth, cylindrical canisters of the atmospheric refinery.
Finn could feel Sedhi tensing beside him. “Hold your ground, Sedhi.”
“They’re almost within range.”
“So are we.”
They raised their blasters, expecting at any moment to feel the explosive bite of plasma tearing through their bodies.
“Fire!” Finn yelled. The four heavy field blasters let loose, the staccato spray of their fire burning through layers of cold-pressed durasteel.
One of the boxy faces swiveled towards the source of the offending shots, its turbolaser cannons pointed at them like admonishing fingers.
“Major!” Sedhi yelled.
“Keep on it!”
Just as the AT-WT’s cannons lit with green light, the CO canisters ruptured with an earthshaking roar. Pipelines full of stored, concentrated carbon monoxide shattered apart in a ball of fire that shot above the rim of the nearest skyscrapers and cracked the street below as if a small sun had crashed into the planet. Finn’s team tucked back against the protective edge of their shuddering building, hands clapped over their ears and eyes squeezed shut against the blinding light.
Stone and twisted bits of metal rushed down the avenue in a cloud of searing heat and debris. A stunning silence rang out across the devastation.
“Holy shit, Major. I think we got them.” Loa deadpanned, but he couldn’t yet let the relief in.
“Confirm.” He announced.
“I confirm a bunch of slag.”
“Seconded.” Vic said with an aural nod. “That was a great idea, Captain.”
“Good,” Finn breathed, “Gold team, Blue team, report!”
“Gold leader—we have Grand Admiral Ogden’s location locked down. Breaking in now.”
“Red leader here. The lower levels are secure, sir.”
“Copy.”
A low thrum he would have recognized anywhere whined into the air. He cast his eyes to the billowing sky in time to see a wedge of X-wings darting in low. His lips thinned ruefully. The ship he wanted desperately to see was not among them.
“Sorry for the delay, Major. We were bogged down with enemy fire in Sector 4.”
“Copy,” Finn rubbed at his brow as the ships swept past and swung a high arc, scouting for enemy craft.
“We didn’t leave you guys much to do. But that’s fine—we’re used to doing your jobs.” Loa called out sarcastically at the X-wings retreating engine lights.
“That’s enough, Lieutenant.” Finn sighed.
“Well, it’s true.” She countered, her lekku curling angrily.
“I know it is, Loa.” He said with a grudging smile.
“Major,” Gold Leader’s voice again. “We have Grand Admiral Ogden…but uh…he decided to take the easy way out.”
“Dammit…”
“All high ranking personnel are accounted for and apprehended.”
“Copy that. Make the announcement, Gold Leader.” Finn leaned his dust-coated head back against the buildings cool stone. Weariness and relief flooded through him; the week-long assault was over. He could have dropped to the rubble-strewn street and slept right then. “To’merra is ours.”
His team cheered, shaking their blasters in the air and hugging, jumping on the spot. “All teams, bring prisoners and wounded to sector three. I’ll let Admiral Statura know the campaign is over.”
Gold Leader’s magnified voice erupted from loudspeakers that dotted the streets at every intersection. “Attention remaining First Order personnel. Grand Admiral Ogden has surrendered. To’Merra is now in Resistance control. I repeat, To’merra is now in Resistance control. Lay down your arms or you will be killed.”
Finn made a weary call to Admiral Statura, who waited in a capital ship in orbit above the city. Transports rained down, both to apprehend and to heal, and Finn stalked wearily about the clearing battle site, stumbling here and there over unseen craters and chunks of stone. A fresh breeze billowed the dust this way and that, revealing horrifying, scarlet glimpses of his teammates and fellow troops who had not made it. Raz, Inra …he looked hollowly upon their bodies, and the bits of their bodies, with something akin to numbness. I let them down...
I want Poe…
Tears welled for a painful moment. A hand landed softly upon his shoulder, and he turned towards the tanned, freckled face of Sedhi. “They would be proud, Major.”
He nodded stiffly, biting the insides of his lips. They waited by their fallen kin until a transport came for them, and then he and the remaining five loaded them gently onboard.
Finn tossed and turned upon his cot. He had scrubbed the battle from his body, but it played in an endless loop behind his eyes. A sea of ‘ifs’ tormented him. Maybe Raz would still be alive if I hadn’t told her to circle round. If I had sniped that Stormtrooper, if I had seen him, Inra would’ve made it. He had dutifully filed his report with Admiral Statura and then beelined for his and Poe’s quarters onboard General Organa's capitol ship, The Beacon, too exhausted even to bother with mess. The room was solidly dark, but it was hard for him to sleep without BB-8’s resting light. It was harder still to sleep without Poe beside him. He’d not been prepared for the separate lives that they would lead while serving the Resistance as it mopped up the remainders of the First Order. He realized that he had not been prepared to live as a separate being; aloneness was something nearly foreign to him. All of his life he had been with others; he had trained together in groups, slept around others, ate and showered and lived around others. As soon as his real life had begun, there had been Poe. There had always been Poe. It was so strange, after months of constant togetherness, to now be separated, and that vacancy followed him wherever he went. He had seen Poe for hardly three months out of the past eight, and that time had been fractured; a few stolen days here, a frantic hour or two there. If he was honest with himself, he found the months of harried running onboard the Hyrotil far preferable to this life of endless battles and constant goodbyes. At least then, they had been together. The emptiness of their little room had a gravity all its own, a crushing, keening weight he’d never anticipated. Please let him be okay, he begged the universe as he flopped down and flung an arm over his eyes. Part of him morbidly expected to receive ‘The Call’ and the handwritten letter that he had made now many times to his teammate’s next of kin.
His hand curled upon the sheets where Poe should’ve been, an aching line cracking down the front of his chest. What time is it in the Galov sector? He could try calling. They called as often as they could, providing that they were not in active combat or on covert missions. But Poe was likely in active combat right now. They had not managed to speak to one another for four days, and whenever Poe didn’t answer, Finn was throttled with panic, imagining that he must be dead though he knew he was overreacting. At the moment, he wasn’t sure if he could bear for Poe to not pick up; it would be safer just to let it be and try to sleep.
With a sigh, he thought back on the two weeks that they had spent on Yavin with Kes, and a wan smile tugged at the corners of his lips as colors and spices and birdsong soothed into his ears. He heard the sighing of the ocean and Poe’s laughter as he splashed him with cool water. He felt his lips sealing around his and his hand splaying out across his scar as the hot sun beat down upon them.
How much longer will this go on?
He had hoped (naively he now realized) that once Snoke had been destroyed, that the First Order would simply topple like a building with the foundation pulled out from under it, and that they would be free to live lives of giddy togetherness and discovery. But the Generals and Admirals who had survived now held on to their dwindling power and influence with tooth and nail, and civilians who had sympathized with them took every opportunity they could to wreak havoc in random attacks across the galaxy. Even the Resistance was not immune to the chaos—indeed, several of their allies had taken the opportunity to advance their own political causes, and infighting ran rampant. General Organa had her hands full trying to manage the frayed governmental threads. Maybe I should call him. It’d be good to hear his voice, even if he can’t talk for long. He sighed, laying in dark indecision.
As if the universe had heard his thoughts, his comm buzzed from his bedside table. Please don’t be that call. Please be Poe. He fumbled for the slender device with his heart in his throat. Resistance security protocols prohibited the showing of name or number, or the ability to leave messages; it could be anyone calling. He switched in on.
“This is Finn.”
“Oh, thank gods.” Poe’s voice blew through him like an ocean breeze. “Hey, baby!”
Finn melted against the headboard with relief, and he clutched his comm to his chest like a beating heart. Poe’s smile bloomed in the darkness behind his eyelids. How he ached to feel him and kiss him; just the sound of his voice had him floating weightless, as if he’d completely unmoored from his body. “Hey, honey.” He managed through shaking relief.
“The Trogan campaign must be over if I actually got ahold of you.”
“Yeah—just finished today.”
“…how’d it go?” Poe asked with all the caution of a bomb-sniffing droid.
“It…it was okay. We finally liberated To’merra, but Ogden did himself in.”
“Coward.” Poe said distastefully.
“No kidding.” Finn agreed emphatically.
“Man, I’m glad that’s over. Are you back home, now?”
“Yeah. Just laid down about half an hour ago. I wish you were here with me though.”
“I know, baby, I do too.”
They trailed off into a heavy silence.
“How are you taking it?” Poe asked softly.
Finn was silent a beat too long.
“Finn?”
“I lost Inra and Raz.” He choked; saying it out loud like that made it somehow more real. “I got To’merra, but l-lost them.”
“Oh, Finn…I’m so sorry.” Poe said softly. “I…I know how much that hurts.”
Finn wiped at his eyes and then sniffed mightily. “Statura’s contacting their next of kin now. Well, Raz’s next of kin.” Inra, a fellow defected Stormtrooper like himself had left no one behind. The thought made Finn’s heart twist within his chest. “Onboard funeral services will be tomorrow. I—I feel like it’s my fault, Poe-” he started, but Poe cut him off.
“Don’t do that to yourself, Finn. You know that’s not how it works—we can’t be everywhere at once. We can’t see it all happening. I know you did absolutely everything you could. Your team knows it too.”
Finn heaved a shuddering sigh and quickly changed the subject. “How about your side? How’re things on Gamorr?”
Poe sighed. “Long day—just got back to the Runner. We had a 17 hour surveillance run—but Senator Prilla is wearing them down. I don’t think it’ll come to open conflict.”
“Good,” Finn sighed with a relief so deep he could have fallen asleep right then and there. “Then you’ll be back soon?”
“Shouldn’t be more than four days.”
Finn’s mouth thinned and sadness lanced down his chest. Four days was not soon enough. There was every chance that he himself might be redeployed to a new sector, and that he would miss Poe in transit. His tight silence lengthened until Poe was compelled to ask.
“Baby, what is it?”
The core of his consternation bubbled unexpectedly to the surface. “I’m not good at this, Poe.”
“Finn, no, you’re a great leader. We all lose people in this line of work…that’s just how it goes, and-”
“No, I mean…I’m not good at being alone. It’s…it’s weird.” He sighed. “I keep thinking about when we were at your dad’s and….I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know?” Poe asked carefully.
“I want that all the time. I don’t want to keep worrying about you, and…I don’t want to see you just once a month.”
“Finn, you don’t have to stay in the Resistance if it’s not what you want. No one would blame you. I wouldn’t blame you.” Weariness weighted his voice suddenly, and Finn could practically see him pinching between his brows. “You know…I’ll be 33 in a month. Mom and dad had been mustered out for five years by that point. They had their life all squared away...” He trailed off wistfully.
The question came from Finn before he could stop it. “Would you leave the Resistance?”
Poe’s hesitancy caught him off guard. “I’d want to see how all this turns out. I…I don’t know yet. ”
“Well I know,” Finn said with sudden bitterness. “You won’t. That’s your life more than I am.”
Poe recoiled as if he’d been slapped, and the defensive shock in his voice only managed to make Finn feel worse. “That—that’s not fair! This is who I am, Finn, and you knew that before we ever got together!”
“Yeah, well, knowing something is different than living it.” He held petulantly to his hurt, desperate for Poe to understand how wretched he felt, while at the same time knowing that he was being unfair.
“Look, if you want to leave the Resistance then do it, but don’t make it out like I don’t love you just because I’m out here doing something I believe in!”
“Forget it,” Finn muttered.
“Forget what? What are you really trying to say?”
“I don’t know!”
“What, would you rather we were crammed onto the Hyrotil with bounty hunters breathing down our necks again?”
“At least then we’d actually be together!”
Poe took a huge, tense breath that pleased Finn in a petty kind of way. “Okay—you do realize how stupid this is, right? That we’re fighting about how much we miss each other? It’s not my fault that the First Order are a bunch of bitches, Finn. Which you’re kind of being right now, honestly.”
“Oh, sorry. I’ll let you get back to your patrol, Colonel.”
“Goodnight, Finn.”
The connection went dead and Finn held his comm with a shaking hand. He tossed it to the floor and rolled angrily over with his arms crossed before his chest. Goddammit. His breath blew hot out of his nostrils as the bitter minutes crawled by. His eyes were drawn to the empty space beside him and heat sprung to his face. Before he knew it, he was crying.
He understood, deep down, that he was not angry at Poe so much as the situation itself, but there was a lost child within him that felt abandoned by his lover, no matter how stupid the notion might be. A frantic and miserable argument broke out within his mind as he replayed every word of their conversation.
You signed up for this too, he told himself. Why did you have to say that stuff to him? …I miss him. What if he dies out there?
Why does he have to leave me? Why couldn’t he just say that he cares about the Resistance more than me?
You know that’s not true.
It feels true sometimes.
He wiped at his eyes. His acrid bitterness rapidly swirled into regret, and he reached blindly to the floor. If something happened to Poe, he would never be able to live with himself for leaving it like this. His fingers closed about his comm and he pressed in Poe’s code with the surety of muscle memory. The tone pulsed over and over again. He’s not picking up. He’s pissed at me. After the fifteenth pulse, Finn gave up. For a long while he lay in silence, staring up at the low paneled ceiling with his hands clasped over his stomach. Then he stood, pressed on the lights, and clothed once more. He could not stand lying there while feeling so wretched.
The softly curved hallway of the Beacon’s housing wing was lit with white light, like the inside of a luminous shell. It was as far distant from the cold, hard angles and glossy blackness of the First Order as it was possible to be, yet Finn nonetheless felt claustrophobic within its walls. He decided to take a walk. The massive Titan-class Mon Calamari Cruiser boasted a floorplan so large that Finn could walk for hours in a slow loop about its perimeter before returning to the housing floors. He passed by the tech wing, full of glowing spider-webs of holomaps and tactical readouts, coders hunched over terminals with ghost-pale faces, and shook his head. The Resistance never sleeps. He took a lift up one level so that he could continue about the bow of the ship and get a look at the stars; they always helped to center him.
He slowed before the mercifully empty observation deck and its half-dome 20-meter long window of spotless transparisteel. The universe stretched out before him, soothing his sadness into the background by virtue of its sheer indifferent enormity. His eyes traveled from far distant start to star, watching as they flickered with mute fire in the deep black. Poe was out there somewhere. He swallowed; it all looked so serene, so peaceful. It was hard to believe that just a few hours earlier he’d nearly been blown to pieces by an AT-WT; that two of his friends had died before his eyes. It was hard to believe that he could get so wound up and angry over something that was well beyond any mortal’s control; that he could blame Poe for trying. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, focusing on the warm peace and joy that flowed over him at Poe’s touch, and the laughter that lie at the center of him.
Blue light shimmered before his eyes and then solidified into a stream in human-shape, spotted here and there with luminous stars that flared like white diamonds. The pattern of Poe’s life-light was dear to him. It eased his heart to see it, strong and potent, when once he had watched it drifting into the ether.
It must be hard for him not to see me at all. At least I can do this. He scratched at the back of his head, feeling like a clingy child. His sprees of emotional upset had come more and more often as the battles and time apart had lengthened. In a single hour relief, joy, sorrow, bitterness, anger, loneliness, and despair could sprint through him like fire. It left him feeling upended and cut off.
He had made several close friendships with his teammates, but they were all likely asleep right now and he didn’t want to wake them with what he felt were selfish complaints. Counselors were on-call at all hours onboard the ship, but he didn't have the energy to dredge through his emotions with a relative stranger. He would wait. Just a few more days. You can make it a few more days. Then you can talk it out and figure out where to go from there.
He took another deep breath, aware that he was monologuing. He pictured the lake near Maz’s castle and he stilled his mind to mirror that glassy surface. He heard the trees sighing, felt the cool breeze washing over his skin. He followed the flow of Poe’s lights for several blissfully unaware minutes, and then he opened his eyes and started back to their room.