~o~
The cabin lighting has been reduced to shipboard night, and everyone seems to have found a corner to slip into for a few minutes rest.
Everyone.
Poe Dameron isn't one for feeling helpless. He's more the shoot-first-and-ask-questions-never type, but right now, he's feeling discouraged down to his very marrow. 'Everyone' consists of about a dozen people and 'driods; all that's left of the once-mighty Resistance. So many friends, people he'd fought beside, bled for and pledged to die for if necessary, and they're all just gone, cut down by the First Order in a ruthless display of power that had sucked whatever hope they'd had left right out the airlock.
He wonders if things would have been different if he hadn't pushed so hard to destroy the Dreadnaught during the evacuation. General Organa would tell him to get his head out of his afterburners, that there's nothing he could have done about the low fuel reserves or the First Order simply waiting for them to stall so they could pick off the Resistance ships one at a time.
Doesn't change the fact that he feels like he should have done something more, or maybe just listened to the General when she'd tried to call off the attack instead of charging ahead and giving the First Order time to put a trace on the Raddus. Retreat has never been his strong suit, and doing something has always been preferable to doing nothing, but sometimes being smart is better than being brave. It's the lesson the General had been trying to teach him for so long, but he's just too lazerbrained to get it.
"Stop."
Poe raises his head, peering up at the shadow that's fallen over him. He ghosts a smile when he recognizes Kaydel Connix and her cute-as-a-button buns silhouetted against the dim overhead lights.
"Stop what?" he asks quietly.
She settles down beside him, not far from the alcove where Finn is curled up with Rose Tico, practically willing her to be okay. The kid's come a long way, and Poe is as surprised as anyone that he's taken to Rose; they're such opposites, but maybe that's why they seem to work.
Kaydel curls into him, nudging until his arms settle around her shoulders. She presses her forehead into his cheek, taking a deep breath, and then another. He can feel the stress bleeding away, so he pulls her closer, tucking her body into his. She's been busy since the jump to light speed, finding everyone a spot to bunk, a bit of water and food. It's what she's good at—organizing—so he'd left her to it while he'd… ruminated.
"You get everyone settled?"
She sighs. "Yes. Rey and Chewie are sitting up in the cockpit, and I left the General in the Captain's quarters to get some sleep."
Poe figures that's the last place Leia Organa wants to be, a room filled with the echoes of the man she's only just lost after finding him again. But he also knows that the General has never pushed away the hard things, and she's not likely to start now. And despite their dire circumstances, she'd been full of hope before she'd been bundled off to bed. Even through the sadness pressing in on him, he'd felt that spark.
"At least I got you to stop," she murmurs.
"Stop what?" he asks again.
"Brooding," she says, snuggling still closer, draping her legs over his until she's practically in his lap. He tugs her the rest of the way, wrapping both arms around her until she's pressed into him as close as she can be. "Mmmm, better."
Poe huffs a laugh. "I'm not a piece of furniture, but I'm glad you're comfortable. And for the record, I wasn't brooding."
"Oh?" she asks. "What would you call it, then?"
"Thinking," he says. "Ruminating, maybe. But not brooding."
"Right," she says, clearly not convinced. She pulls back a little so she can look him in the eye. "You're brooding, wondering if you could have done anything differently to get a different outcome."
"How did you—"
"Pfft," she says, waving a hand, "you're a pilot. 'If it moves, shoot it. If it doesn't, it paint it green.' Isn't that what you pilots always say?"
"I think you have me confused with ground troops," he says on a huff of laughter.
Kaydel shrugs. "Eh, whatever. My point is, you always need to be doing something, but sometimes, the best course of action is to wait. Not easy for you, I get it."
"I'm a pilot, Kay," he says quietly. "It's my job to shoot at things. If I can't do that, what good am I?"
"You know," she says, "there's a saying on Kashyyyk: 'The wroshyr tree dreams of one day touching the stars; but until that day comes, it offers shelter to the treelizard.'"
Poe tips his head back, staring up at the ceiling of the Millennium Falcon as Kaydel snuggles up with him once more. He's reminded of the conversation he had with the General on board the evacuation shuttle. She'd been trying to tell him the same thing, perhaps a bit more pointedly, but he thinks he got what she was saying. Don't try to be the big hero, just do the job in front of you, no matter how big or small.
But that still doesn't change the fact that he was the Squadron Commander, and all those people were lost on his watch. He's going to feel that responsibility for a long time to come.
"She lost them too, you know," Kaydel says quietly. "You think she feels any less responsible?"
He opens his mouth to dispute that, but he knows he can't. For all that he was in charge of the squadron when they lost the bombers, General Organa was in charge of the Resistance. They were her losses, too. All the bomber pilots, the cruisers, the evac shuttles, the ground troops. They were hers before they were his.
"How does she do it?" he asks into the silence. "How does she come back from the losses time and time again?"
"Hope," Kaydel whispers. "She has hope." She pulls back and looks at him, her expression soft and kind of sad in the low light. "Hope. The spark that will light the fire—"
"That will win the battles before us," he finishes for her.
"It's the truth that this Resistance was built on, and the Rebellion before it," she says. "We honor the sacrifices of those we lose, because it's their hope in a better future that provides the fuel for the days ahead. It's not going to be easy—it never is—but as long as we have hope, the future is ours."
He reaches up and cups her cheek, his heart singing with love for this spitfire of a woman. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," she says, grinning. "Now, we've lived to fight another day. What say we celebrate?"
Poe raises an eyebrow. "What exactly do you have in mind?"
"Just this," she says.
She leans in close, pressing her lips to his. His heart skips a beat, and then he's kissing her, pulling her close as he pours all his loss, longing, and yes, hope into the kiss. His hands roam everywhere they can reach, not trying to excite, more like making sure she really is here and whole. He can feel her hands in his hair, holding on as if afraid he'll disappear if she lets go. He knows the feeling; he's more grateful than he can ever say that she'd come through the evacuation and subsequent attacks alive and well.
Finally, after long minutes, he gentles the kiss, pulling back until their foreheads are pressed together. "I love you," he whispers.
He can feel her smile more than he can see it. "I know," she says. "I love you, too. Always."
"If you two are finished making out over there, I'd like to get some sleep."
Poe chuckles as he casts a glance over at Finn. "Sorry, buddy."
Kaydel burrows into his chest, hiding her shaking shoulders as she tries to suppress the laughter bubbling up inside her. Poe presses a kiss to her head, his own chuckle slipping out between breaths.
"Try to get some sleep, sweetheart," he whispers. "Big day tomorrow."
Kaydel hums, but it seems she's already halfway to sleeping because she just goes limp in his arms, her breathing steady as she drifts off. Poe presses another kiss to her hair and tips his own head back to lean against the wall. It's not the most comfortable place to sleep, sprawled out on the floor with his back against the wall, but he figures as long as he has his friends around him, and Kaydel in his arms, he can face anything. Even an uncertain future.
~Finis
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