Did he deserve it? After everything he had done, after all the blood that riddled his hands, after leaving you that day...

Well, would he prefer to die without feeling it again...

BB-H8 came rolling in, confirming that the back exits and windows were secure and that they had maybe five minutes left until the forces were at the door.

“Five minutes.” He repeated to you with a sigh as he collapsed beside you, finally getting you to look up from where you tied the next bandage around your calf.

He still loved you, if he was being honest, he always had, he always would.

His fingers trembled as he reached for the glove on his opposite hand, beginning to wiggle its way off his hand, revealing skin, marred by scars over nearly every inch of it. There were a lot of things he couldn’t remember, a lot of things he blocked out, but he could never forget the last time he felt something nice, the last time he held you and the beautiful yellow dress.

And as he reached out towards you, he wondered if he deserved to know it again.

He didn’t mind dying, but he couldn’t stand the idea of you dying alongside him.

He just couldn’t stand it.

“I think I love you...”

There were birds cawing over head as you slipped out of your shoes nearly made you miss the words as they fell from his lips, but as he turned back to you, already out of his shoes and standing in the sand, he easily repeated it.

“I think I love you...”

The yellow dress was nothing compared to the brightness of your smile. “You think?”

“No, I guess I know that I do.”

You launched into his arms, stumbling him back into the sand, pressing your lips to his for maybe the hundredth time, but making it feel like the first time all over again. His scarless, bloodless hands grabbed your skin, your dress, every inch of you, to hold you close.

“Is this you saying the same—“

“Yes, Poe, I love you.”

Why did he have to go wandering where he wasn’t supposed to be?

He had just been so eager to find you after the guards stole you away, all he wanted was to watch the sunset with you and it was getting pretty close to the horizon now, the sky going pinker and pinker and he had to find you. He wanted to find you...

“I always thought that you had told him...” he heard you say through the towering palace door.

He didn’t know you were talking about him, he didn’t know what was happening inside, he thought it was just a meeting and he didn’t want to interrupt so he lingered.

When he heard Leia’s voice respond, he knew something was wrong.

He knew the two of you were talking about him.

“I didn’t know how, he was just a boy.” Leia sighed, “no boy deserves to hear his parents killed themselves.”

Leia said it was a casualty of war. He was eight years old. He didn’t understand, and he just couldn’t breathe.

“You say they killed themselves for the rebellion, for something bigger—“

You knew. You knew...

“He doesn’t need to know—“

That was when he ran. He didn’t mean to knock over the plant beside him, he wished he hadn’t, then you wouldn’t have followed, you would have just let him leave and it wouldn’t have had to break his heart to run from you and that yellow dress.

How could you know and never tell him, how could Leia, how could anyone...

He got the full story a couple years later, after he made the new Dameron name for himself as a bounty hunter. Leia hired him and he finally asked why...

Kes and Shara had been pinned down, in a cantina actually, not too unlike this one, with information that would end the war and they couldn’t let the empire get their hands on it. But as the only two people in the whole galaxy who had ever read it, after they destroyed the disk, they had to make sure it couldn’t be tortured out of them.

It was for the rebellion, Leia urged, like it made a difference.

He couldn’t fight for the resistance, he couldn’t fight with her or with you, he couldn’t support the thing that killed his parents, he couldn’t.

He couldn’t knowingly fight for a better world when there wasn’t one out there. The empire, the first order, what was the difference... there was no winning.

There were no more yellow dresses or smiles, there were scars and surviving.

Or at least that’s what he told himself to keep himself alive all these years.

But with death on the other side of the door and moving in fast, he wasn’t entirely convinced he even believed himself anymore.

And when you took his hand in yours for the first time since he ran away from you and the truth...

All he could see was you in that yellow dress, that smile, the beautiful skin under the sunlight, toes in the sand. He was a kid again when he felt your touch, he wasn’t this battle hardened bounty hunter with no first name and no sense of morality. And you weren’t the resistance spy who lost everything when the first order destroyed your planet, you were a princess in a yellow dress, splashing water in his face and telling him you loved him too.

“I can’t let you die here...”

You squeezed his hand, drawing him closer whether you meant to or not. “Poe, this isn’t your fault...”

“Doesn’t really matter now, does it?” He tried to smirk, but it fell on his face the second his eyes landed on yours again. “I can’t let you die here.”

You pulled your hand back, just to adjust where you sat, your leg bandages tightly holding your legs but the one on your shoulder falling as you turned to sit closer to him. Then your hand was back in his and he swore he would never let it go.

“I wanted to tell you.” The words burst out of you, seeming to use up all the strength you had left. “About your parents, when Leia told me that you didn’t know, I wanted to tell you.”

It had been so many years and it took coming to your deaths for the two of you to finally speak.

He didn’t care though, he’d wait a lifetime for you.

“But you ran away from me, from us, and the next time I saw you... you had become this façade of yourself and bounty hunter Dameron wasn’t the man I fell in love with. So I was mean, and sarcastic and stubborn because you were too, and I guess we both just got so good at it that we forgot what we used to be.” You continued, gripping his hand tighter and moving your other hand to the side of his face.

“I—“

“I didn’t want to be the princess and you didn’t want to be Poe, it’s not your fault and it’s not mine. We were both hurt and young and...”

For deathbed confessions, it nearly sounded like you had practiced.

And maybe you had. Maybe you spent every waking minute of every day that you didn’t spend on helping the resistance practicing what you’d say if you ever got the man you loved back. You could never have dinner in the palace with your family, or sit in the cove and watch the sunset, all of that taken away when first order destroyed your home. But you dreamed that one day you could have him back. Maybe that was why it always hurt to see him.

Maybe that was why you were holding him so tight now.

“But I’ve missed you.” You finally admitted, “and I don’t want to die here but I’m not an idiot either.”

“I’m going to get you out.” He fought but you just shook your head, a stray tear fighting down your face.

“Poe, I can’t be alive when they get here.”

You knew too much. You were Leia’s second in command, you knew everything there was to know about the resistance and you knew everything the first order wanted to know. That was why the bounty was so high. But what you were saying, what you were implying...

It brought him back to the palace, stood outside your meeting with Leia, hearing how his parents did the exact same thing.

The list of people he’s loved in life isn’t long, even shorter if don’t consider those that are dead, and he wasn’t making that list any shorter today or any day, he couldn’t lose you.

“You can get out of here, Poe—“

He shook his head, reaching up to hold your hand at his face and squeeze your other until his scarred knuckles went white. “I’m not letting you die.”

“The first order doesn’t know that you’re working with the resistance, you can kill me and get the bounty and they’ll spare you—“

“Are you out of your mind?” He shouted while you gingerly strokes a tear from his cheek, “that’s not going to happen.”

“Poe—“ you pleaded but he couldn’t hear it anymore.

“No. I’m going to get you out of here.”

“I can’t be alive when they get here, Poe, please, you know—“

“I came here to save you and that’s what I have to do—“

You reached up into his curls and pulled his face down to yours, smothering his lips with yours before he had a chance to finish his sentence.

He didn’t feel like it was your first kiss again, he felt the weight of everything between the two of you pushing the both of you together, holding you in close as he pressed his lips to yours. And as your tears mixed on your cheeks, he felt his heart breaking over and over again, the yellow fabric melting away into the bloodied pants and cut up shirt you wore.

The princess he loved wasn’t gone, nor was the boy you loved.

The two of you had grown into who you were now, but the spark was still there, the burn in his chest that made even this icy tundra feel like Mustafar was still there.

There was no more yellow dress, there was just you.

And he had to get you out of there.

“I’m not letting you die.” He repeated, his lips ghosting over yours as his hand found the back of your neck to keep you close, “I can’t.”

“You may not have a choice.”

“I think, for the first time in a long time, I do...”

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