#force ascending

***

The droid gestured her down a hallway, at which point Rey thanked him and dashed ahead, impatient with the shuffling pace she’d previously had to keep to— but having burst in, she found herself surrounded by beds, bacta tanks, curtained-off chambers, and a bustle of personnel both organic and droid more seemingly chaotic than any Jakku market.  She hesitated, hovering in the doorway.  Pulling anyone aside might jeopardize someone they were going to help— might jeopardize Finn himself.

“Hey— Gentlebeing— are you hurt?” came a voice, and she jumped at its proximity: a strikingly handsome Human in the orange fatigues of a Resistance pilot took her carefully by the elbow.  “Sit down, I’ll get a medic.”  He turned to a passing orderly, but Rey caught him by the sleeve.

“No, I’m fine, I’m here for my friend— Finn, he was injured, he’s Human, about my age, wearing a brown leather jacket with a red right shoulder, he’s a little taller than I am—”  Finn was lying horizontal on a gurney somewhere, so that was useless, but the pilot was nodding anyway.

“I know, it’s okay, I’m here for him too.  They took him into surgery already, they’ll let us know how he’s doing as soon as they can.  Come on, sit down.  It’ll be alright.”

He led her back into the corridor to a low bench along the wall. She sat, hugging herself, still feeling cold and starting to feel numb.  “They said so?”

“Said what?”

“That he’d survive.”

He knelt in front of her, looking her steadily in the eye.  “He’s in good hands, I promise.  Dr. Kalonia’s a surgeon in a million.  Are you the friend of his the First Order captured on Takodana?  You’re really not hurt?”

“A bit bruised,” she admitted.  She’d likely be feeling every contour of that tree along her back in the morning.  With the adrenaline rush having died down, she was conscious enough of the pain. But she’d walked away from plenty worse. “A headache.”  She shrugged; to her frustration, her eyes were tearing up again anyway.  “I’ll be fine,” she repeated, setting her jaw.

But the pilot had gone still and pale.  “Did— Kylo Ren, he interrogated you?”

She’d thought Han had said Ben, but it had echoed so.  “I didn’t tell him anything,” she said quickly, tensing.  “I didn’t give him what he wanted, all he got was— useless, tactically; I swear it.”

“You did well, you got through it, you’re away now,” said the pilot. “I’m so sorry.  Kriff, I am sorry.  You’re safe now.  You’re home safe.”  He had taken her hands in his.  This had now been more people touching her without violence in short order than Rey could even remember.

His skin, too, was warm against hers.  The unbelieveable chill of Starkiller Base still hadn’t let her go. “I didn’t kill him,” she reported miserably.  “I wasn’t fast enough, and then the planet was coming apart underneath us.”  Ren may have killed Finn, and Rey hadn’t had the guts to step forward and finish him off when she’d still had the chance.

She flinched at the reflexive thought that had warred against desperation for as long as she could remember: that when her family came back, she’d have to tell them how she’d lived in their absence.  And if they didn’t like her answers, they might decide to leave again. She couldn’t steal; couldn’t murder. Would killing Ren have been murder? She’d always gone to Constable Zuvio, whenever she’d run across dilemmas, and asked him for advice on the legality or ethics of her options.  Who could she trust enough to ask, here?

<Rey!> beeped a familiar tone, and BB-8 rolled almost into her shins. <Rey is alive!  Rey is here!  Master, look, Rey!>  Drawing back slightly, the droid then did bump her shins, gently as a flutter of clothing.  <Rey is hurt badly?>

“I’m fine,” said Rey, overwhelmed and starting to get suspicious about being met with so much concern.  What did it matter to all these people?  Perhaps they had all come to care about Finn, as she had, and this was for his sake? “Finn’s the one who’s hurt.”

“He’s being treated, BB-8,” said the pilot, letting go one of Rey’s hands to place his palm over BB-8’s head, mindful of the antenna.  “They’re looking after him, don’t worry.”

“You’re BB-8’s new master?” Rey asked softly, feeling a little better about the droid’s prospects.  “I’m sorry about Poe Dameron.”

The pilot blinked at her, startled.  “I’m… sorry?  What did I do?”

BB-8 whirled his head around and thumped into the shin of Poe’s forward leg with significant force.  <She thought you were dead, too.  Like we all did.>

“Oh, buddy,” Poe murmured, and to Rey’s surprise, pressed a kiss just above BB-8’s primary photoreceptor.  “I’m alright.”  He gave Rey a smile, small but sincere.  “I’m Poe Dameron.  Thanks for helping BB-8.  You and Finn completed my mission— the Resistance is grateful, and I am too.” He’d slung an arm around the droid’s body, and was allowing his hand to be poked at by one of BB-8’s attachments with only minimal wincing.  “Hey, listen, I’m sorry if this is presumptuous, but is there anyone you need to comm, tell them you’re okay?  I can step out for a while, BB-8 can relay your message— and won’t repeat anything to me, either.”

“No,” said Rey.  “I just need Finn to survive.”

“Oh.”  Poe blinked. “You’re another escaped Stormtrooper?”

She shook her head.  “I’m a Jakku scavenger.  I’m—”  I’m no one was on the tip of her tongue; she bit it back without quite knowing why. “I’m Rey.”

This time, Poe Dameron’s smile was wide, and as soft and warm as his jacket. “It’s good to meet you, Rey.”

***

She started getting drowsy after another few minutes of motionlessness, the tension of worry having left her singing nerves exhausted.  Drowsy enough, apparently, that an impulsive desire to take Poe’s hand kept surfacing; she thought he could use the comfort as well as she.  He had kept an arm around BB-8, and the droid passed the time humming little snatches of nonsense-tones like Rey had never heard from any droid on Jakku.  Perhaps it was a different dialect of Binary— she was unfamiliar with the existence of any, but that certainly didn’t preclude their existence.

Droids and beings had come in and out of the medical center several times while they had been waiting, each time causing the two of them to come to stiff attention like they’d heard the failing whine of crashing ships.  Poe had spoken to no few of them, clearly on friendly terms with most, professional with the others.  They called him Commander or Dameron and referred to Finn as his friend, as his soldier. Still in surgery, they said. Don’t worry.  You know what the Doc can pull off.

Poe thanked them, whether they had news or no.

***

After another hour Rey had jittered off the bench and started pacing.  BB-8 rolled carefully at her heels, and they paraded back and forth across the hallway until she found herself feeling too conscious of the ridiculous picture they made and sat down: it was that or snap at BB-8, who didn’t deserve it.

“So tell me how you know Finn?” Poe rasped, then, scrubbing the back of a hand across his forehead.  He looked as worn-out as Rey felt.

“How do you?” she countered, not ready to talk about everything that had happened; to her surprise, Poe looked across at her and did, starting with General Organa having sent him on a solo mission deep behind enemy lines.

Rey sat cross-legged and listened, as he talked about the slaughter of diasporic Alderaanians and withstanding interrogation only to have a creature in a mask tear apart his mind to just take what he wanted (she was startled, again, by the impulse to take his hand.  She didn’t, but she had to clench her fists against it).

“I should have killed him,” she startled both of them by interrupting, and drew her knees up to her chest.  “I’m sorry I didn’t kill him.”  Kylo Ren, or Ben, or whatever his name was— he may have killed Finn. He had made gracious Poe Dameron’s voice grate with remembered pain.  He had stolen Han Solo from the galaxy.  He had made Chewbacca scream. He’d put that awful yawning grief in Leia’s eyes.

“The General’s probably not,” Poe responded, and she couldn’t decide if he sounded wry or bitter.

<I might be,> BB-8 muttered.

She liked better when he talked about Finn, about Finn having appeared like a miracle, his bravery and skill and spirit. Less, the harsh realization that Finn was likely dead, having no way to search for BB-8 without equipment or transport, and being stranded onplanet within a radius of walking distance until he could find someone to charm into giving him a ride.  But hearing that BB-8 had made it to Takodana ahead of the First Order, and then finding Finn again, getting BB-8 safely to the Resistance— Finn’s determination to save Rey— the battle that had gone on in space while she’d been inside the base, their triumphant return, then seeing Finn limp in Chewbacca’s arms.

It seemed a terrible end to the story, so she told him hers, starting with hearing a droid shouting in angry, desperate binary that his master was coming back for him, had promised to come back for him, and BB-8 had to be waiting there when he did, let him go, leave him alone.

BB-8 rolled away from her upon hearing her recount this, into Poe, who actually picked the droid up and cradled him on his lap like a parent with a child, arms wrapped around BB-8’s round body.  BB-8 headbutted his collarbone, not gently, the thump of it loud in the corridor.

“Hey,” said Poe.  “I did come back.  Don’t be like that.”

<Sure, with your nailbeds all punctured,> BB-8 retorted, and Poe flinched slightly.

“I’m fine. I was cleared for battle within hours of checking in.  I was, in fact, brilliantly winning dogfights with TIE-fighters within hours of checking in.”

<Stupid reckless pilot,> BB-8 said, but didn’t attempt to move.

Poe smiled up at Rey.  “I’m sorry about this tiny spherical menace of an astromech. Thank you,” he added, arms tightening on the droid, and Rey smiled back.

***

It was, as she’d thought, still far too soon to talk about Han Solo.  But she said a little, and BB-8 filled in some, and Poe’s eyes were sympathetic and understanding.  “I didn’t know him well,” he said, “but I did know him some, if you do want to talk about him sometime.  Forever he’ll soar between the stars,” he finished softly, which had the cadence of a ritual phrase.

Rey nodded, unsure if there was a scripted response to give back; the Teedo had phrases like that, could have entire conversations in formal call-and-response.  They didn’t like talking to other species more than absolutely necessary.  She had never been able to learn much.  “I don’t know where I’m going now,” she confessed.  “I don’t know if I’ll be here.”  She thought about that for a minute, turning it around in her head, the vast unknown of her future stretching ahead like starlines. Her life until now had been one single goal: survive until her family came back.

If they weren’t coming back… if she’d accepted that… then she could do anything.  She was trying not to be afraid of that.

“I’m a pilot,” she said finally.  “And a mechanic.  Could you use me in the Resistance?”

“We lost the equivalent of a whole squadron of starfighters taking out that base, we could use a mouse droid if it showed up and wanted to fly for us.”  He shrugged slightly.  “Pay’s not great, life expectancy’s short.  Food’s monotonous, accommodations are usually cramped and sometimes pretty mimimal. Medical care’s not bad when we can get the supplies.”

“That’s not much of a pitch.”

“Oh, it’s a pitch you want?”  He scraped himself to his feet and posed, stance wide, head lifted, helmet under one arm.  Rey half-expected a breeze to appear in the corridor to ruffle through his hair.  “BB-8, give us a slogan.”

<‘Are You With Him?’>  BB-8 chirped readily. <‘Stand With Him!’  ‘He Can’t Do It Alone!’  ‘Are You Content For Him To Fight For YOU?’  ‘Remember Hosnian!’>

“Too soon, buddy,” said Poe grimly, flopping back down.

<‘This Is Poe Dameron,’> BB-8 continued undiscouraged.  <‘He Just Destroyed A First Order Superweapon The Size Of A Planet In A T-70 X-Wing Starfighter.  Where Did He Learn To Fly Like That?  Find Out! Join The Resistance Today!’>

“Yeah, I had some help,” he said, grinning at Rey.

“So did I,” she answered, her own smile dimming, because two-thirds of it was dead or dying right now.

“He’s tough, he’ll be fine,” said Poe, kind and sure; and then “He’ll be fine,” again, pressing his thumbs into the upper edges of his eye-sockets and letting his breath out in a sigh, not long but deep.

“He’ll be fine,” Rey found herself saying: quiet, as if to herself, but Poe smiled at her with long-lashed tired eyes, and it felt like Finn saying you looked at me like no one ever had.  Rey had seen her reflection more than a handful of times in her life, by now, but it had never been anything more than a source of low-key distress at how unrecognizable she’d grown.  She wasn’t sure how to assimilate this strike of bone-deep surety that for the second time she’d— given a gift to someone who’d needed it, just by— by a look.

***

They waited.  At some point they counted off languages, trying to find others in common besides Basic and Binary.  Poe could say a few phrases in Shyriiwook, as could Rey, but hers were mostly things like accusations of Thief; Liar; Swindler; Cheat; No way this piece of junk is worth the price you’re asking; and his were more along the lines of I need to find a long-range communications station; I need transportation, I can/cannot pay; I’m with the Resistance; Thank you for your generous assistance. They found a few they both knew: Please, I need water; Please, I need shelter; Please, I need a place to hide.

They taught each other simple phrases in others. Curses, prices, calls for help, pick-up lines, tongue-twisters.  Traded Crolute for Sullustan, Nu-Cosian for Mando’a.  Held a short contest of boasts and insults in Huttese.

Later she wouldn’t remember how or why they ended up arm-wrestling, lying prone on their stomachs with their elbows on the ground, lips bitten eyes squinted muscles straining, BB-8 metronomically counting and tilting wobblingly far over to get a better angle on who was winning. She would vividly remember how it had shifted into an actual wrestling match and from there to a dirty scrap: they pulled back panting with bright new bruises and wrenched joints and a few bloody toothmarks here and there.

They took turns catching and pushing BB-8 from each of them to the other while the droid whistled what Rey knew was gibberish and was starting to suspect was BB-8’s version of singing, idle and simple.

They waited.

***

There weren’t windows in the corridor, and they were already underground, but even in the unaccustomed humidity Rey could guess when night had fallen, the air cooling down and the sound of a generator kicking in somewhere behind the walls.

She was used to the deep cold of desert nights. Here it was a different sort, and in terms of temperature she was sure it was measureably warmer, but the moisture in the air was clammy on her skin.  Hours and hours ago, Finn had given her his jacket.  Poe’s jacket.  Gashed open now, scorched brittle along its wounds’ edges.  At home in the AT-AT, she had blankets, hard-earned; poor bargains, as all necessaries came.  She had extra wraps for if she needed to be moving around.  She wondered if they’d been looted by now.  Surely she had a little time, bought with a reputation for ruthlessness and skill— that, too, hard-earned.  But anyone who had seen her leave—in the company of a strange offworlder, in a freighter stolen from her master/benefactor, pursued by the First Order—might think they had reason enough to believe she wouldn’t return.

They might even be right.  The thought was simultaneously appalling and prosaic.

“You’re shivering,” said Poe, and then, before she could respond, “give me a minute.”  He stepped into the medical bay for maybe thirty seconds and returned with a silvery-gray blanket crumpled in his arms.  He shook it out and BB-8 rolled along its bottom edge, letting it drape over his head, until Poe had wrapped it around Rey’s shoulders.

She tugged it closed, frowning.  Leia had said that she could get something warm to wear at medical, but Rey had assumed this meant she’d need to trade something for it. She looked Poe up and down, but the flightsuit was shapeless enough that she couldn’t tell if anything substantial was gone from the pockets.  “I won’t be in debt to you,” she warned; he could take that as either refusal or offer to pay him back, as he chose, and she would know how to proceed.

“Okay,” he answered easily, too easily; “what for?”

“Whatever you just paid for the blanket.”

“Oh, you’re serious,” he said after a second, and joined her on the floor.  “I didn’t pay a thing for the blanket, promise.  They like me here, I win battles for them.”

<Huzzah!> BB-8 cheered obligingly.  <To victory!>

Favors, Rey thought sourly.  Of all the currencies she’d rather not deal in, favors topped the list.

On the other hand, there was sometimes use in letting someone remember that you owed them.  When Rey had been a very small child, she’d had to follow other scavenging crews.  They’d occasionally gone so far as to keep her from getting herself hurt or killed—a dead scavenger, even an inexperienced and undersized one, couldn’t pay you back for the time and energy you’d spent showing her what to do, nevermind the portions she’d eaten.

Aware she was rationalizing, she clutched the blanket tightly around herself anyway, tired and heartsick and the headache still thumping in her temples.  She wanted desperately to cry for Han Solo’s death, and here on this planet with its curling vines and humidity heavy in the air she could probably even afford to—but she’d cried so much today already, more than she had for years previous, she was sure, and no more tears came.

She shuffled her back against the wall. After a moment Poe joined her, legs straight out, hands resting on orange-clad thighs, BB-8 quiescent at his other side.  He was only slightly taller than she was, and probably of a height with Finn.

After a long moment, Rey flipped the lower corner of the blanket over his legs, carefully avoiding his gaze.

***

“Aww look at you two,” someone crooned, and Rey jerked awake, stifling a yelp.  “I mean, you look adorable, but uh, the heroes of the hour are sacked out in a hallway why?  There’s a hell of a party going on and you’re missing it.”

“Pava, I say this with all love,” came Poe’s voice right beside her ear, gravelly with sleep.  “Fuck the fuck off and enjoy the party, ok?”

“That was almost rude and I am very proud of you,” Pava announced, raising an eyebrow.  She was a petite woman, though she didn’t have the look of the chronically underfed or water-starved— Rey could tell that much even with the baggy pilot’s flightsuit.  “Introduce me to your friend, will you?  Just kidding. You must be Rey.”  Pava jerked her chin.  “I’m Jess Pava, callsign Blue Three.  Poe’s runaway stormtrooper would not shut up about you.”

Rey’s legs had relaxed in sleep, her knees tucked in against Poe’s thighs; now she drew them up and wrapped her arms around them. “Yeah.  He came back for me,” she managed through her tightening throat, and to her surprise, she felt Poe’s arm tighten around her waist, too—when had he—?

“We’re waiting on word of his condition,” he said, dragging his other hand down his face.  “Once we know he’s stable, I’m sure we’ll be in more of a mood to celebrate. Alright?”

“Alright, Black Leader,” said Pava, throwing him a quick and slightly uncoordinated salute.  “Force be with him.  See you later.”  She ambled away, the weaving of her steps barely noticeable as anything more than a sway to her hips.

Rey worked her jaw slightly, swallowing— there was so much moisture in the air!— and contemplated with baffled wonder this hitherto unprecedented situation: she’d fallen asleep in someone else’s company. Not only that, she’d apparently shifted until her head rested on his shoulder, and his cheek had been leaning on her crown.

His arm was still around her waist.  Her knee had fallen against his thigh again.

She must be more exhausted than she’d thought. Rey had known better than to so let down her guard around strangers since before she’d outgrown the clothes she’d arrived in.

“I’ve never slept with anyone before,” she mumbled, still anxious and still tired.

“You’ve got time,” Poe answered her, still in that rasp of a voice, and sounding much as he had when she’d brought up debt: as if she was mystifying him but he was willing to reach out and clasp hands if she was.  Twenty-four hours ago she wouldn’t have known what that sounded like.

She was grateful, abruptly, powerfully, that Poe had been there for Finn to rescue, to help Finn escape.

She hoped Poe would have the chance to be grateful to her for saving Finn from Kylo Ben and the collapsing base.

Impossibly, she slept again.  Impossibly, feeling as she drifted off, her head on Poe’s shoulder. His temple against her hair, tugging the strands from their bun.  Leaning into his side under his arm, like BB-8 was doing on his right.  Thinking Finn, Finn, please, Finn, please, intuiting with easy certainty that Poe’s thoughts were mirroring hers.

***

Someone cleared their throat and this time Rey came awake more slowly, opening her eyes and picking up her head to look at them, less disoriented than before.  A tallish woman stood before them, pale-skinned with dark brown hair, on the older side of middle age.  Poe tensed hard beside her and started to scramble to his feet, bracing one hand on BB-8, cupping Rey’s elbow briefly with the other in a tacit offer to help her rise should she choose to lean into it.  She didn’t, but she found that she liked that he’d offered.

“Doctor,” he was saying, which Rey had guessed; her heart had already started pounding wildly the second Poe’s spine had stiffened.  “Is—”