Chapter Text
The world shudders and shakes and there’s a rumble that has to be an explosion and his head hurts.
Which, all in all, was a pretty average day for him. Both before and after the resistance.
He blinks, the black clouds of his vision giving way to a landscape of forests which is strange because last he checked he was in space. Or on a ship. Actually, he was on that godforsaken sith planet that Rey had led them too. He’d just happened to be on top of a ship at the time.
Another explosion and he was on his feet even though he could barely stand.
Right, the war. He needed to move. Preferably not right into the arms of the First Order.
He stumbles his way into a run, not really knowing which side he’s running towards, just knowing that being in the middle was a monumentally bad idea.
Finn was used to working with bad ideas though. He did hand out with Poe and Rey after all. Rose wasn’t exactly level headed either.
He ducks and dodges and weaves his way through the brush. His 6th sense yelling at him just as he skids to a stop.
Armor. White armor.
“Who are you?,” a voice asks, training a blaster on Finn.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
His hands move to his hip and dammit the holster is empty. Which, now that he thinks about it, may have saved his life. He was no quick draw. Not to the degree he’d need to be.
But they were asking questions and not shooting first, which was good. Better, actually, than expected.
“Stand down. It’s a civilian,” another trooper says. The man doesn’t quite hollister his blaster, but it’s something akin to an active rest, so Finn allows himself to relax. If they wanted him dead he’d already be dead.
Their armor isn’t stormtrooper armor. Not really. It bears similarities, but the design is distinctly different. Finn isn’t an expert on galactic history- force knows he’d only just recently come out of the First Order propaganda education system and even then he’d been a trooper. There hadn’t been much use in having him know anything more than where to point his blaster. So he doesn’t recognize the armor, only knows that it’s not stormtrooper armor.
“On our way commander,” the sharp response to an unheard radio catches his attention.
“Come on,” the other man orders. “Unless you want to get fried by the seppies.”
Seppies. Separatists. He knows that that isn’t normal.
As they run he scoops down to grab a blaster from a fallen droid. He wasn’t one for shoot first ask questions later, but when someone was shooting at him- and that someone happened to be a droid, he wasn’t going to be too particular.
“Nice shot,” the one with triangles on the brow of his bucket said. He arched his neck over their cover and pops two off himself.
“Nice shot yourself,” Finn grins because there’s something stupidly giddy about a firefight. Something about almost dying that forms bonds faster than anything.
“Names Cobalt,” says the man. “That’s Usher.”
“Finn,” he responds and they’re running again. They barrel roll into a ditch of some kind, crouching together.
“How the hell did you find yourself out here?” the other man, Usher, asks him.
“Don’t know,” Finn answers honestly. “I’m just that lucky.”
Cobalt snorts. "Lucky enough to be in the middle of a firefight."
Fair.
"What's the plan?" Finn asks instead.
"Get back to our unit," Usher says.
Simple. Effective. Also, they completely neglected to include running straight into the enemy and bombing a shield projector in that plan, but Finn didn't hold it against them. They didn't want to include him in that part of their plan. They’d wanted to leave him with the refugees.
Hours later he loses them when they found themselves back at the Republic armies temporary base. He blends in with the refugees, the dirt and grime of the battle sticking to him.
He gathers by staying quiet and listening that they’re on a small trading planet. That they’d been taken over by the separatists, sold out by their higher powers. The common people had sought the Republic out for help.
Their planet was one of refugees to start with, little better than slaves they toiled under the power of the stronger. For the most part they were okay with that. Their lives were still better than that of their fellows on their home planets, so they submitted. Until it wasn’t. Under the separatists they were slaves, thus the uprisings.
He gets a glimpse of their jedi-general. A large Besalisk. He didn’t like him, there was something wrong about him-something that reminds Finn of his CO’s under the first order, but he was efficient and he got the people loaded up and out of the planet.
They’re all aboard the fleet when Finn sneaks his way into the supply room and becomes a soldier again. Except now he’s among clones, so he has to be careful.
Still, he wont be lost among the refugees. He needs to be able to travel. To talk to the Jedi, or to someone.
%%%
It’s surprisingly easy to blend in.
While the men here had more personality than any of his First Order companions the Besalisk, General Krell didn’t treat them any better than the usual soldier. Which was familiar, if a bit concerning. He thought the Jedi were supposed to be the food guys.
It did, however, make things easier. If he stuck near where the Besalisk was nobody would ask anything of him. In fact he got the general feeling of pity from the clones.
“Who are you?” One man asks a few days after they’d dropped off the refugees. He’s not wearing his bucket, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You’re not on the rotation.”
CT-8930. He’s a captain, and he looked out for the others. There’s nothing really that differentiates the clones. No alternating hairstyles. No marks on their armor. He knows they can tell eachother apart from each other, but he couldn’t. Well, he could, because he had experience filling in the blanks on whos who.
“I’m covering,” he says, standing at attention.
930 gives him a look, but doesn’t say anything other than to clasp Finn on the arm. “Good man,” he murmurs.
Okay…
%%%
By the time they get to Umbara Finn knows all he wants to know about Krell’s style of leadership. Somehow he’s made it far enough that the other men rely on him. They lose most of that battalion right before Umbara. When they arrive, there’s barely three dozen men left. Of the 404
They’re backing up another Jedi. Anakin Skywalker. Anakin Skywalker. As in Luke Skywalker.
Okay, cool. Now they’re getting somewhere.
Except he doesn’t have time to talk to the Jedi knight. Skywalker is shipped off back to Coruscant and he’s left with General Krell and a bunch of blue painted clone troopers.
By that point most of Krell’s troopers were gone. Krell pushed them hard and he ran them to the ground with little consideration for their livelihoods. He found out one of the reasons he’d been able to slip in so seamlessly was because they didn’t get attached. They died too often to warrant that.
The few men that were left integrated themselves into the 501st. The first day among them was… odd.
“Take that bucket off,” One with thick blue stripes down his arms says. “You’re one of the 404, right?”
“708,” Finn responds, pitching his voice just so. With the helmet on it was good enough to match the clone's voice. “We merged with 404 after the last deployment.”
The clone cursed, “Yeah, that sounds about right. I heard Krell keeps losing battalions.”
Losing. Sacrificing. It was all a matter of word choice.
“Kip, c’mon,” one of the others mutters from his bunk. “You’re scaring the civy.”
Finn starts.
“Man, we’re clones, we all know one of our own,” another, Tinker, says. “And we definitely know when you’re not one.”
“Some of the 404 boys sold you out, as if we couldn’t tell,” a scoff, “Said to keep an eye on you.” the one from the bunk- Walt says.
He exhales, removing his helmet. “Why didn’t they say anything?”
Kip shrugs. “Don’t know. They like you well enough. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with us ner vod.”
“You’re just letting me stay,” Finn looks from one man to another. “Why?”
“We trust our brothers,” Klein says. “And it’s not like I’m going to report anything to Krell.”
“Insubordination,” Kip sing songs.
Popper slaps him on the back. “Welcome to Nix squadron,” he says.
%%%
Umbara just keeps getting worse and worse.
Kip, Tinker and Klein don’t survive the night. Finns not a squad leader or anything, but somehow he gets put in charge of a few of the survivors. Most of the men from 404 do, actually. Maybe Krell thinks it’ll help to keep the 501st in line.
He manages to keep his squad alive. When they come though a man with a handprint on his chest gives him an odd look.
He wonders how many of them know.
Or rather, how many of them don’t know.
Things come to a head when they’re tasked with capturing the airbase. There’s troopers in trouble, an execution is slated to take place. Like always, he’s close by, so he’s called to join them. He’s on the execution line.
When Rex stays the execution Finn can’t be any happier. He wouldn’t have fired, but there was little he could do in the face of the others. If he’d been the only one…
No, he wouldn’t have been, because they all know this is wrong, and because they’re not just clones. Just like he wasn’t just a first order soldier.
He approaches Rex afterwards.
“So why are you impersonating a brother?” he asks mildly.
“I need to talk to a jedi. A real jedi.”
His answer is a grim smirk. “You help me get my men through this and I’ll introduce you.”
“I don’t trust this,” Finn says. “I don’t trust him.”
“We have to follow orders,” Rex says.
“Like you did for the execution?”
“You don’t understand,” Rex says.
“I understand more than you think.”
“Just who are you?” he asks. “Why are you here?”
“I told you. I need to speak to a jedi.”
“I’ve heard from the others. You’ve been with Krell for the past month. The only reason the men that did survive survived is because you’ve been looking out for them.”
“It’s the least I can do.”
“They trust you.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Maybe not under Krell, but I don’t know where your loyalties lie.”
“Trust me. I’m just as loyal as you are.”
Rex turns to him. “What’s your name?”
“Finn.”
%%%%%
There’s something wrong. Something ringing in his mind that feels remarkably like when he first awoken from the mindless drudgery of the First Order.
“I don't like this,” he says, and Rex, who’s at his side, nods in agreement.
“Me either.”
%%%%
Its a betrayal. They’re made to kill their allies. Their brothers.
He should’ve listened to his instincts.
Stupid! Stupid!
%%%%%
“Who’s this?” Marshall Commander Cody asks, his voice ringing with authority.
“Finn,” Rex says curtly, and something passes between the two brothers.
“Okay then Finn,” Commander Cody says, “What should we know about Krell?”
%%%%%
He’s being held up by the force. He knows the feeling, otherworldly though it may be. Rey’s done it plenty of times
Except this time it’s by his neck. And he’s choking. And Rex and Cody are at his side shooting off rounds in that instant.
“You okay vod?”
“Never better,” Finn grumbles, already scrambling to his feet. “Let’s get him.”
%%%%
“You know,” she’d said, “you’re also force sensitive.”
“What?” he’d been bewildered. “You mean like Rey and the General?”
She’d shaken her head. “Not quite to that extent,” she’d given him a ghost of a smile. “Even back in the day you probably would've been on the low end of the spectrum, but you are force sensitive.”
“So I can’t-” he gestured vaguely.
“With training maybe,” she said, “It won’t come to you as easy as it does Rey. Feel free to try though. My best advice is to know your limits. For the most part, just trust your instincts. Meditate when you can.”
%%%%
“Rex! Cody!” Ahsoka Tano has never looked so young. Well, that figures all things considered. She is only fifteen or sixteen or so. Not the aged shepherd of the force that he knows mostly by legend. She’d stopped into the resistance once to talk to the General and meet Rey. He’d only run into her by chance. He’d never forget her though.
“Hello littl’un,” Rex sounds bone weary, and while he’s looked bone weary for the last week since they’d executed Krell, this is the first time he sounds it.
“I heard what happened,” she says looking from Rex to Cody to Finn, who for once has his helmet off. Once Krell had been deposed of he didn’t really see a point to it anymore. It was fine though, the vode all trusted him apparently.
He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Nobody trusted him easily. Nobody but Poe and Rey and Rose. Everyone else saw him as a wild card. Sure, he was respected in the resistance, but there was still an underlying current of unease among many of the people there.
She exchanges a look with Rex before turning to him. “You must be Finn,” she says, a smile ghosting her lips. “I’m Ahsoka Tano.”
“I know,” he says.
%%%%%
They fly straight to Coruscant. Most of the men are swapped out for another battalion, and the 501st and 212th are put on temporary leave. Rex, Cody, Jesse, and Fives all come with Finn to the temple. Ahsoka has to wait outside of the chamber.
“What is your name?” Mace Windu cuts an impressive figure. His voice is hard, his expression unmoving.
“FN-2187 sir,” Finn says. He doesn’t know why, but like Ahsoka said, he trusted his instincts, so he starts with the beginning. His beginning. “Soldier of the First Order. I served under Kylo Ren, Sith apprentice 43 years from now.”
The explanation is rather simple. He’s from the future. They go round and round talking about it. Deliberating and debating and then they took a recess and released the clones back to the barracks. He knows he needs to talk to Rex and Cody and the others, but they have their orders. Ahsoka grabbed him then, dragging him with her to the yard to meditate because “You’re practically vibrating anxiety Finn. I can feel it.”
He doesn’t meditate, he can’t. His mind is too abuz with everything that’s happened. He hadn’t had a moment to stop and think after being dropped in with Krell and the war. Now that he does, well, he can’t stand to.
Ahsoka notices it and invites him to spar with her.
He’d never had formal training. Not like Rey. They’d spared a few times between the two of them. Rey had often joked that he ended up in as many lightsaber duels as she did so he might as well have the practice. His form is crude and rough in comparison to Ahsoka's fluid movements and athletic prowess, but he holds his own.
There’s something about the rhythmic ache of it all that settles his mind.
“It’s called battle meditation,” she says to him afterwards as they with together, sweat dripping from their brows as they heaved big breaths of air. “It’s not the typical way to meditate, but it works. My master likes to meditate by tinkering with electronics.”
“What do you think they’ll do to me.”
She shrugs, a considering look on her face. “I don’t know,” she says at last. “Your situation is unique, to say the least.”
“Do you think I can be trained?” he asks, hopeful. He got why he hadn’t been, really. Leia had tried, but it hadn’t really taken. Not like it had with Rey.
“I don’t see why not,” Ahsoka smirked, “I’ll even teach you if the council refuses.”
He chuckles. She’s just a kid, for all that he knew of her. Capable and just a bit reckless. She reminds him of Rey.
“Sure you will,” he says, bumping her shoulder with his.
“I will,” she threatens, a broad smile on her face.
%%%%%
He’s called back into the council chamber alone this time.
“Finn,” It’s General Kenobi who speaks to him this time. “Tell us what you know.”
So he does.