Solo's Jedi ~Poe Dameron/Star Wars ~

Chapter Nine: Kill Us Both

Everything around me in the Falcon seemed to be chaos, as Finn wrestled with Chewie trying to bandage his wound up, and Rey and my father fought with the ship to get it to work. I, however, felt separated from it all, disjointed from the mayhem as I sat by one of the smuggling pits across from BB-8, wrapping a bacta-bandage around my injured ankle, biting my lip to stop myself from cursing. 

I felt useless. I wanted to help, but yet I couldn't. I'd trained as a mechanic in the resistance, and I knew basic first aid, but Dad refused, telling me to just clean myself up. It was as if he was trying to side-line me, keeping me away from any of the action, and I couldn't help but feel slightly jealous as I glanced down the corridor of the ship, knowing he had Rey in the cockpit instead of me. She was more use than I would be given my injury, and it'd probably help to have fresh eyes on the Falcon given the repairs it needed, but I'd spent so long waiting for my dad to turn up for me to still be sat alone. 

I'd gotten used to being alone, but that didn't mean I hated it any less, which was why I was thankful for BB-8, the droid occasionally nudging into my side gently as I worked on the bandage. It was as if he was trying to remind me that he was still there, and as I finished up, feeling the healing fluid flow around my twisted ankle, I glanced up at the droid, flashing him a small smile as I patted his head. 

"I missed you too, buddy," I sighed, leaning my head back to rest it against the wall, trying to focus on the droid and not the crushing emotions of loneliness and nostalgia weighing down on me. "It still feels weird, being back around people. I always thought... I dunno, I always thought after I found my Dad it'd be much simpler. We'd go back to the resistance and... And I always thought Poe'd be waiting for me..."

It had been something I'd thought about a lot, my return to the resistance. I didn't expect it to correlate with such an important mission. I thought I'd just return quietly, my father and Chewie with me, only my mother and Poe waiting for us on our return. It was a nice little fantasy I'd made up for whenever I felt particularly alone or despairing over my decision to leave the resistance, but now Poe was dead, it was a fantasy that would never come true. 

Knowing that he was dead felt like a part of me had gone too, the exact same it felt in the aftermath of the academy, and maybe it hurt that much because both times I hadn't been there. I hadn't been there for Poe for the last few days and he'd been alone in death, and I hadn't been at the academy for nearly a year before Ben turned. 

I'd been off travelling the galaxy with Izzy and Erika, under Luke's orders. He wanted us to practice using the force in the real world, explore what it was like as a Jedi outside of the academy. It was tricky, given the fact that I was a target of the First Order, but even with the fact that I had to hide my true identity most of the time, it was the first experience of freedom I'd had since the resistance had started. To go out with my two friends as liberating as well, the three of us seeing things that none of us had ever experienced before, but even with all the excitement of the adventures, we were all relieved to be heading back to the academy after so long. None of us had been way for that long, and we all missed out friends and Luke, and I missed Ben more than I thought possible. We thought we'd come back to a hero's welcome, our classmates waiting for us. I thought Ben would be waiting for me. 

Our return wasn't what we expected, the grounds of the academy was silent, usually a place full of life, and as Izzy and Erika went off to find everyone else, I went to find my brother. He had been waiting for me, outside my dormitory hut, but he wasn't Ben anymore. The voices I'd told him to ignore for so long had finally gotten to him. If I'd have not gone travelling, perhaps he wouldn't have gone to the dark side, a thought that had tortured me for years. Snoke, the sith supreme leader had finally gotten hold of him, but Ben was determined to turn me too. He'd turned, but swore he could not do it alone, that he needed me at his side.