A few weeks after the Battle of Exegol, Rey takes a day to calm her mind and meditate in the surroundings of the provisional base on Ajan Kloss. Ben insists on coming, but he hates meditation :(
Painted 20/01/26
I'm quite happy with how this looks, hope you guys like it to!
CW: chronic illness, chronic pain, references to PTSD, implied sexual intimacy
Ao3 Link
★★★★★★★★
He should have been home by now. You check the time on your datapad again, and you can’t help but worry. Normally when he’s running late, he sends you a message to let you know. Poe has been off-planet on a trip to Lothal for two weeks helping a friend repair his home after a tornado came through. “It’s the least I can do,” he told you before he left. “He saved my ass more times than I can count during the war.”
After so many years together, it always feels strange when he’s gone for more than a few days—but not to the point of anxiety. That had started an hour ago, when he didn’t answer your call. You’re reaching for your com to call him again when you hear the garage door squeaking open. Arsix beeps and warbles, a binary phrase somewhere along the lines of told you it would be okay.
BB-8 comes through the door first, chirping a greeting.
“Your antenna’s bent,” you say. “Where’s Poe? Is everyone okay?”
Arsix has removed BB-8’s bent antenna and is already repairing it when you hear Poe cursing in the garage. There’s a slam that can only be the speeder door, but there’s also a metal-on-metal screech that startles you. You’re about to go out to the garage to check on him when Poe finally enters the kitchen looking exhausted. His jacket is torn and his hair is a mess—and is that a shadow or a bruise on his chin?
“Poe—”
“Come here, sweetheart,” he says, reaching for you as he drops his duffel bag on the kitchen floor. “Let me hold you.”
“What happened?”
As he pulls you into his arms, BB-8 chirps and whistles.
“A speeder wreck?” you ask. Tenderly you reach for his jaw. It is a bruise and he winces as you touch it.
“It’s not so bad. Kid came out of nowhere, sideswiped me. I would have called but my com went out the window, smashed into a tree.” Poe pulls the remains of his com device from his pocket and sets it on the kitchen counter as he explains how the police droids took forever at the scene of the accident because the other driver had been underage and the vehicle—his father’s—had been reported stolen. “Going to have to have at least one of the speeder doors replaced. Looks like you already fixed the little guy’s antenna.”
“Arsix did,” you say. “Are you hurt?”
“Nothing serious,” Poe says, taking your face in his hand. “Nothing that could keep me from getting back to you.”
This is his way—a little joke instead of answering your serious question. For now you smooth his hair away from his face, his dark curls now threaded with silver.
“At least now I know why you didn’t call,” you say.
“BB-8 tried to get a message to you. I didn’t notice his antenna until we were almost home.”
He does you the courtesy of not asking if you were worried. He knows you too well. Knows that you’ve been pacing between the sofa and the kitchen window for at least an hour. And you do him the courtesy of not telling him any of the horrible circumstances your anxiety conjured in your head. He knows all of those, too.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” you ask one more time.
And he knows better than to lie to you, tells you there’s a pretty bad bruise on his ribs but nothing is broken or bleeding. So you set him up on the couch with an ice pack, a cup of tea, and some low-dose bacta spray.
“You’re too good to me,” he says as you help him out of his jacket.
“I’m feeling okay, and you’re not,” you say. “You’ve certainly taken care of me enough, when I’m not well.”
Poe takes your hand and pulls you down onto the sofa with him. He’s trembling, slightly—this happens sometimes. When he’s finally safe enough to start feeling his feelings. And he won’t want to talk about it right away—probably not until tomorrow. So you just hold his jacket, while he holds you, his heartbeat elevated.
“You were wearing this that day,” you say, running your hands over the soft leather, examining the damage from the crash. It had been so warm on Chandrila this year—you couldn’t remember the last time you’d seen him in his Resistance jacket.
“The day we met,” he says. “Can you fix it?”
“You know I can.”
Poe kisses you then, his lips pressed against yours with an urgency you haven’t sensed in him in years.
*
You’d met at your favorite spot for an afternoon cup of caf—a little place in your neighborhood that was part café, part bar, and just enough atmosphere for you to get a little work done while getting out of the house. And this place had also begun serve as his favorite spot for an after-work pint of ale. You’d seen him before, noted his jacket, the Resistance starbird on the shoulder. And you couldn’t not note how handsome he was—a man with the easy smile of someone used to getting plenty of attention. But what you’d noticed about him in recent days was his sad eyes.
If it hadn’t been for your droid, you doubt you ever would have talked to Poe. He had the look of someone whose heart had been recently broken, and you’d been down that path before—being the person who is only there to fill the emptiness that an ex-lover left behind. But on an especially quiet afternoon, a BB-unit rolled in to tell him that repairs to his speeder were finished and your R6-unit—assigned to by the New Republic therapy droid program—immediately perked up, beeping and whistling as she made her way to the ball droid who had begun to rock with excitement.
“What is it, buddy?” Poe asked.
When the droid told him an old friend was in the room, Poe immediately recognized your support droid, R6-D4.
“Arsix, is that you?” Poe said as he got up to approach the droid. “Who are you with these days?”
Arsix told Poe she was with you, spinning her head in your direction. So when the man with the sad eyes looked at you, you waved. You weren’t prepared to talk to any living being other than the barista today, so when he started walking toward you, your heart began to race. Seeing him up close, this man was breathtaking, with his dark curls and sharp jawline. You felt heat rushing to your cheeks.
“Poe Dameron,” he said, sticking his hand out for you to shake. “You a pilot?”
You took his hand, rough and warm, and inhaled deeply before you replied—this was a conversation you’d had many times since being paired with Arsix here on Chandrila, a Republic stronghold with several flight schools and Naval bases.
“No,” you said. “Arsix is a support droid. She helps me out—I’m sure you know other folks—”
“Of course,” he said. “You must be a veteran, then?”
Something else you’d heard a thousand times. Between Arsix and your PTSD, there were a lot of assumptions anytime you disclosed these parts of your life to someone new. It was exhausting, but Poe seemed kind. You gave him your patience.
“No,” you said. “There’s a program here—I’ve been with Arsix for about a year now. They’re working on getting disabled folks set up with droids. Not just vets, but civilians as well. Arsix is the only veteran in our household. But we do meet a lot of people who know her from the war.”
Poe sat down immediately and dropped his face into his hands in a moment of embarrassment before brushing his hair back with his fingers. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I haven’t even asked you your name and I’ve managed to pry into your personal life.”
You told him your name and said, “We get this a lot. What we don’t usually get is an apology.”
“I shouldn’t have assumed. I knew the pilot she used to fly with, so I imagined when he passed…”
Arsix cooed in a low tone, and you knew she was thinking of the man she’d spent most of her life with.
“Is your droid a vet?” you asked.
He laughed, his eyes brightening. “Yeah,” he said. “We both are.”
Arsix lets out an excited series of whistles and beeps, telling you that the man you were talking to was the general who lead the Battle of Exegol.
“Co-lead,” Poe corrected. He looked back to you and smiled. “Hey, would you want to get dinner? Nothing fancy, but I think these guys would like some time to catch up and I really should get away from the bar. Rough week, you know?”
You switched off your datapad and put it in your shoulder bag. “Why not,” you said. “I don’t usually go out with strange men but Arsix seems to think you’re respectable.”
Poe laughed and asked you if you’d been to the diner that had just opened up near the park. And since you hadn’t, you piled into his speeder with your two droids and headed into town.
*
“You know,” Poe says, “I actually had been hoping to be the big hero tonight.”
“Oh?”
“I got you this thing…” he starts, before calling down the hall, “BB-8, can you bring me the thing? It’s in the outside pocket.”
Poe runs his fingers along your jaw and cups your face in his hand before kissing you tenderly, slowly, his hand moving to the nape of your neck as he deepens the kiss—a kiss you return, your hands in his soft hair.
BB-8 chirps, interrupting with a small shopping bag. Poe smiles and thanks the droid.
“There was a little market on Lothal on the last day I was there,” he says, opening the bag. “And I’ve been meaning to get you one of these for a long time.”
Poe holds out a small box and you open it, revealing a pendant on a silver chain—a small stone set in several intricately carved interlocking rings.
“It’s kyber,” he says. “It’s not fancy kyber, but it’s kyber. And the way the stone sits in the silverr—I know this sounds insane but it’s supposed to produce a subtle vibration that helps with anxiety. You just sort of switch it on, if you slide the rings like this—”
The pendant is so delicate in his hands—rough hands from his years as a soldier, from his current job as a flight instructor, from his inability to not tinker with anything mechanical. But these were also the hands that held you through every panic attack, every difficult doctor visit, every night your joints hurt to the point of insomnia.
“Rey told me about it. Said she knew of jewelers that did this sort of thing. I just hadn’t found one until now.”
“It’s beautiful,” you say. “Will you help me put it on?”
As Poe clasps the necklace at the back of your neck, you’re not sure if you’re feeling the pleasant weight of his kindness or the calming vibration of the kyber. But you find yourself overwhelmed with love.
BB-8 chirps something about tending to his succulents and rolls out to the patio where he’s created a little space for his collection of cacti—all sourced from local nurseries. They’re like his pets, and you remember his worry about their stability when you and Poe moved to this house.
“If I hadn’t met you that day,” he says. “I think I would have drunk myself into a stupor. They would have had to peel me off the floor with a shovel and send me home in a taxi.”
“You were a bit of a mess,” you admit. “But it turns out that underneath that mess was a beautiful heart. I’m kind of glad your therapist chose that week to take a little time off.”
“Yeah,” he says with a laugh. “Me, too.”
*
“Do you want to tell me about your rough week?” you asked.
Poe ran a hand through his hair and in the brighter light of the diner you noticed a handsome streak of silver in his dark curls.
“You know,” he said, “I can tell you the version that’s appropriate for having just met you or I can tell you the messy version that’s the truth and I’m not really sure what version you want to hear.”
“Tell me whatever you feel comfortable with,” you said. “We’re just two people in a diner.”
Just two people because you’d given Arsix a handful of credits to go to the shopping center a few blocks over and BB-8 had joined her. Arsix had developed an odd passion for reading paper books—something that had come back into vogue on several core planets, though not for most droids who preferred Binary to Basic. You heard BB-8 chirp something about gardening, but they were already halfway out the door when they’d begun to discuss their new peacetime hobbies.
“Well,” he said, “My two best friends got married this week.”
“That sounds lovely.”
“It was. Honestly, it was great. But I used to be more than friends with one of them, and I thought I’d moved on from that. From him. And I have. I really have. Wartime relationships, you know? But I guess the whole thing hit me kind of funny and I’m trying not to feel it. Which…not healthy, right?”
“Oh,” you said. “That actually sounds really difficult.”
“And the kicker is…my therapist is on vacation,” he said with a smile.
You weren’t sure whether he was joking but you surprised yourself, reaching across the table to take his hand. “Something always happens when my therapist is on vacation, too,” you said. “It’s the worst. And probably why you wanted to get away from the bar.”
“Exactly.”
“Even though I’ve been seeing you there for months now, so it’s clearly your preferred after-work hang out.”
“Months?” Poe asked, a look of genuine surprise on his face. “How did I not notice you before today?”
“I’m usually tucked away in a corner, not at the bar. And Arsix tends to have her proverbial nose stuck in a book when we’re there,” you said. “At least since she got banned from the jukebox for slicing.”
“You’re just…so beautiful and kind. I should have noticed you right away. I must really have been lost in a funk.”
Poe squeezed your hand and smiled—an incredibly charming smile whether it was for you or just to cover a bit of discomfort. And you knew in this moment that you were about to fall for him, even if he was a man with an exceptional amount of baggage. Who didn’t have baggage these days, just a few years out from the fall of the First Order, from the war that almost destroyed everything you loved?
“Well, we’re here now” you said. “And we’re even. You know about my disability status, I know about your post-wedding depression.”
A waiter came by with menus and asked if he could get you started on drinks.
“How about something fizzy?” Poe asked. “What do you have in the way of fizzy drinks?”
*
The sun has set when Poe collects the dinner dishes from the table and deposits them in the sink.
“Let me take care of that,” you say. “You must still be sore.”
“I’m fine,” he says. “The bacta spray took care of things.” He lifts up his shirt to show that his bruises have faded significantly.
You smile, bringing a single lingering glass to the kitchen where pulls you close. You close your eyes, thinking only of how lucky you are that he actually made it home to you today. That the speeder took the brunt of the impact. You take a deep breath, doing your best to hold back the sudden tears welling in your eyes.
“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Poe asks.
“I’m just so glad you got home safe,” you say quietly, barely above a whisper.
“Of course I did,” he says. “After everything, did you really think a teenager in a stolen landspeeder was going to take me out?”
“Poe—”
“I did some very stupid things when I was younger, and some even stupider things…more recently. But I’ll be damned if I ever let anything keep me from making it home to you.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I just did.”
It only takes one look into Poe’s warm, brown eyes to know this is the truth. He gently wipes away your tears, kisses you, the coarse stubble on his upper lip a comforting sensation that grounds you in this moment as you kiss him back with a determined hunger, threading your fingers through his hair and pressing your body against his as he wraps his arms around you.
“Let’s go to bed,” he says. “Maybe I can help you relax a little.”
You follow him down the hall to your bedroom where Chandrilla’s single moon is shining through a tiny gap in your curtains. You’ve often thought to yourself how strange it is that you ended up here on Chandrila, with some hero pilot, and a little droid family. That life is strange, the way things just fit together like that when you’re not even looking.
Poe begins to undress you, kissing the curve of your neck and then your clavicle, his hands gentle with every caress. You help him pull his t-shirt over his head, and as you climb into bed, you brush his hair away from his face, tucking a few wayward curls behind his ear.
“I love you,” you say, “so very much.”
“And I love you,” he tells you, taking your hand—the one bearing his mother’s ring—and ghosting his lips over your knuckles. “More than anything in the galaxy.”
★★★★★★★★
I've been finding a lot of comfort in the sequels recently, and I thought y'all might enjoy a comfort fic with Poe. I hope this makes you feel seen and loved. I'm hoping to continue writing him, and perhaps work a bit more of his PTSD and possibly a lingering physical injury into his story since so many have told me that the disability representation means a lot to them. Thank you as always for reading.
Tagging folks who I think would enjoy! I really need to get a proper taglist going: Tagging some folks who might enjoy:
Summary: Poe leaves Finn and Rey to their newfound closeness to call his dad and tell him about the Battle of Exegol. “Stop making excuses.” Kes Dameron’s voice is almost stern. “Tell him, Poe. Talk to Finn.” Which is, of course, when Finn walks in.
This is the story I posed a bit of on Valentine’s Day here! I’m pleased with it, I think. Now if only the last few pieces of Reclaim the Stars would cooperate! I really want to post the epilogue this weekend, so here’s hoping!
Enjoy!
A few weeks following the Battle of Exegol, I was sent on my first aid trip to another planet to assist in the rebuilding process. There were not many users of the Force and such skills were priceless when it came to reconstruction. It tore me apart to leave Ben; I hadn’t left his side for a month. I feared something would happen while I was gone.
As soon as I returned, I went straight to the infirmary and inquired about Ben’s status. One of the nurses nervously informed me that Ben had come down with a severe fever. I went straight to his bedside, his face, neck, and chest covered in sweat. I immediately blamed myself. I shouldn’t have left. Ben and I were always stronger when we were together...but everyone was counting on me to be present and help with the relief effort.
For the next 3 days, I did not sleep and hardly ate. I stayed by Ben’s side, tending to his injuries with the help of the nurses and replacing cool cloths on his forehead and chest. I could sense through our Force Bond that Ben was being tormented by nightmares. His body would twitch and his face would be screwed up against whatever pain or terror he was facing in his mind. I would occasionally get flashes of the nightmares myself. The lines between sleep and awake, between his dreams and my dreams became almost nonexistent in my delirious, sleep-deprived state, for I was sharing an intense bond with a person fighting furiously against the darkness threatening to overwhelm him. At times when my head would nod and sleep would overtake me, his nightmares would merge with my own, creating horrendous visions that I would quickly snap myself out of before the darkness could suck me in again...
Through conversations we had later on, Ben and I determined that this fever was the last of the darkness within him trying for one last gasp in his weakened state. After years of being steeped in the Dark Side, corrupted and abused by Snoke, we knew he couldn’t just turn back to the Light without consequences. The darkness didn’t go away when the fever subsided either. It took years before the darkness and the Sith voices no longer tormented him, but it was a healing process Ben was willing to endure. Though he often struggled with feelings of unworthiness, I always told him how proud I was of him.
