summary: poe asks you an important question. it doesn't matter that it's 4am, or that it's raining, or that yavin-4 is freezing cold.
warnings: swearing, mentions of shara's death
for a little bit of background, there was a force tree from the jedi temple that shara bey & luke skywalker recovered; it was planted at the dameron ranch and poe grew up around it. it's probably one of my fave things from star wars canon.
Poe never got up in the night. You knew that much.
Once he was out, he was out - especially since the war was over. Sleep was a liberty that had become a luxury. The galaxy was loud back then, you see. There was so much going on that neither of you wanted to nap out of fear for something happening. The ol' saying of I'll sleep when I'm dead had a little too much meaning. But now? Now that the sounds of TIE fighters in the distance and blaring alarms had finally faded? Poe wasn't waking up for anyone. The entire war could have restarted around him and he'd probably tell it to fuck off.
That's how you knew that something was up. You never woke up to an empty bed - partially because your boyfriend was near enough comatose at night and partially because Poe would never go anywhere without telling you. He would have left a note, or a sign, or something. After everything that had happened, he wouldn't have strayed more than six feet from you without a goodbye. It was his way of keeping you close, you figured. There had been days at the Resistance where coming back to another wasn't always a guarantee. That fear was still evident, even if the circumstances were gone. You could feel it in the way he held you at night: tightly, as though you were the only thing tethering him to reality, as though he might slip away into his nightmares otherwise. When he'd lost so much, holding onto you with everything he had was simply a state of being.
Anyways - going on a trek through a planet you barely knew wasn't your idea of fun. Especially not at 4am, when rain was lashing down from the skies and the only thing shielding you was a jumper you'd stolen from the pilot. The sky was pitch black, navy blue tinging at the edges as morning slowly broke. It was summer, after all and Poe had insisted on coming to his dad's on this particular weekend because the weather was going to be great, babe, I promise! You were going to give him a bollocking for that one once you got back home.
You'd checked every room in Kes' house, but to no avail - hence why you were now trekking down their garden path. Poe's childhood home was worlds away from bases you'd lived on for the last few years. It was warm and welcoming; humble but filled with love. It made sense, really. Poe was the best person you knew and it was clear that he'd come from two good people. You could see little bits of Kes in him - he had his nose and his laugh, and the same crinkles by his eyes when he smiled. Everything else, apparently, was from Shara.
Shara. The tree.
You figured that if you were going to disappear at some ungodly hour, you probably would have gone somewhere meaningful too.
Suddenly, you didn't care about the rain or the fact it was cold. You didn't care that your hair was getting wet or that you were almost loopy with tiredness. The minute you saw Poe kneeling down the tree, the only thing on your mind was being with him. He needed you, even if he hadn't woken you up. Neither of you had a whimsical Force connection, nor any other worldly thread from him to you: you just knew.
'Hey, baby.' You placed a hand on his shoulder, kneeling down him. His curly hair was soaked from the rain, eyes glassy as they stared into the dark tangle of shrubbery and leaves straight ahead of you. 'What's going on?'
'Just thinking.' Poe replied.
Dropping down onto the grass next to him, you leaned into his side and rested your head against his shoulder. He naturally responded by bringing his arm to your waist, pulling you closer to his body. It was a little counter-intuitive given that both your clothes were soaked through by the rain, but it was the gesture that counted. He liked to hold you; to be close to you.
