The first one appears in the medical bay, two days after Finn wakes up from his induced coma. It is a bright pink slip of paper with adhesive along one side, and it is sticking to the back of the chair by his bedside (the one in which Poe had taken up nearly permanent residence). It catches Finn’s eye as soon as he wakes up because he automatically turns his head to look for the pilot.
The note reads, “Sorry buddy–General sent us on recon. Bo-ring! Rather be hanging with you! Be back soon. Feel better! –Poe”
It’s the first time anyone’s ever left him a note that wasn’t an order or directive of some sort. Finn stares at it for a long second before he realizes he’s smiling. He wishes Poe were here in person, but thanks to the note he doesn’t feel quite so lonely.
He saves the note, first in his pants pocket, then in the top drawer of the little desk in the quarters they give him, after releasing him from medical the next day. He doesn’t know why he does it; he knows the note wasn’t meant to be a keepsake. But for some reason, it makes him happy: the bright color, the haphazardly scrawled letters that are so different from the fastidious neatness he’d grown accustomed to in the First Order. Whatever the reason, it makes him miss Poe a little less.
When the pilot does return, Finn thanks him for the note. He doesn’t miss the odd glance Poe gives him, probably as he tries to remember what note Finn is even talking about, but after a second or two Poe beams and claps him on the shoulder and says ‘don’t mention it!’ in his eternally cheerful way.
It is not the last note. Perhaps someone saw Finn pocket the pink one, or perhaps it’s just Poe’s way (he hasn’t been around long enough to know for sure), but soon, Finn is finding them everywhere.
The second note appears in in the commissary line, above a dish labeled ‘bread pudding.’ Finn recognizes Poe’s handwriting immediately.
“Buddy,” it says, “if you’ve never tried this before, you gotta! Trust me! –Poe.”
This one is on bright blue paper. Finn wonders briefly why no one else has removed it. He glances around but no one seems to be paying any attention, so he plucks the note from the sneeze guard and tucks it into his pocket.
(He tries the bread pudding and finds that, in spite of its odd and lumpy appearance, he likes it a lot.)
A bright green slip of paper greets him at his door that evening.
“Sleep in tomorrow,” it instructs him. “That means don’t get up the first time you wake up. Roll over and go back to sleep. It’s awesome. –Poe.”
These instructions are a little vague, and Finn is concerned at first, because he doesn’t know how much longer he is meant to sleep during the second go. He ends up only dozing for extra an hour or so, jerking awake every time there are footsteps in the corridor outside his quarters, expecting someone to come yell at him for being late (he doesn’t have anywhere to be, but old habits die hard).
The fourth note is bright, sunny yellow. Finn finds it taped to the mirror in his bathroom, and decides Poe must have left it there after he stayed late visiting the night before. He hadn’t even noticed it before going to bed, but he reads it now.
“You light up the room when you smile, buddy. I thought you should know that! –Poe”
This note is different in that it is not instructional or informative. He learns later it’s called a compliment: a nice thing to say about someone for no reason other than to make them feel good.
Finn decides he likes compliments. He makes a mental note to come up with a few to tell other people.
(The first time he tries this, he thinks he must have gotten it wrong: when he tells Poe that he makes Finn feel human for the first time in his life, Poe’s eyes get shiny and he says, “Aw, buddy,” in a kind of choked voice. Clearly Finn will have to work on his complimenting skills so as not to upset anyone else with them.)
The second slip of pink paper arrives on the afternoon Poe and his squadron are out doing a supply run to a nearby star system. Finn is in the gym working on his physical therapy when a tiny wheeled droid bumps into his leg. The note is stuck to the droid, and it appears irritated about this, letting out a string of bleeps and blips after Finn removes the note before whirring away in obvious aggitation.
“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. Never forget how incredible you are! –Poe.”
Finn, who is not feeling particularly strong right now as he struggles to rebuild muscles that atrophied during his weeks in medical, suddenly feels a renewed burst of strength. He surpasses his previous day’s weight-lifting record by almost half and his muscles are warm with a healing burn.
The days turn to weeks and the papers keep coming. Sometimes they’re short and simple (one is literally just a smiley face). Sometimes they’re silly (“How do you get down from a Bantha? You don’t, you get down from a goose!”) and sometimes they’re sweet (“I’m proud of you every day, buddy!”) and sometimes they’re a little of both (“You’ll never be a number again, buddy–except my number one guy!”).
Finn saves every note. He doesn’t know why, but it feels imperative to keep them; it feels that, if he just saves enough of them, they will eventually guide him to some deeper understanding that is currently eluding him.
It isn’t until the day the notes don’t come that the connection finally finds him, though.
Poe’s fighter was shot down over a distant moon. Poe managed to set it down without it flying apart, but in the process of trying to save the fighter, he was nearly lost himself.
He is in medical now, stretched out and silent on a bed after nearly three days in a bacta tank, and the beeps and blips of the machinery are the only company Finn has, apart from the notes. They are spread around him, a veritable rainbow of colors on every available surface, as he sits on the edge of Poe’s bed and examines them, seeking out the vital clue that will tell him what it all means. Poe’s breathing is steady and slow, and the notes are bright and colorful and Finn is going to find it, he’s going to understand. It’s here, somehow, he just has to see it.
Poe sighs in his unconscious repose, and he doesn’t wake, not yet, but Finn’s heart jumps and fills with warmth when he sees the pilot’s brows drawn slightly, and his fingers twitch against the bedspread.
And just like that, he does see it: the real message in the notes, the one that was there all along, waiting patiently for him to find it when he was ready. He smiles, and scoops the notes together and heads back into his quarters.
* * *
There is a note waiting for Poe, when he wakes in medical bay a few days later.
It is on bright pink paper, affixed to the back of a chair that has been pulled to his bedside. The chair is empty, but for the note, which is written in careful, precise block letters. Poe blinks at it for a long, sleep-dazed moment, before a smile stretches across his face.
The note reads: “I love you, too. –Finn.”
