"I'll shut down the impeders," Hux said, and you shoved him against the wall. He stumbled to touch the pad to unlock the doors. "You've got seconds."

"There she is," Poe said, looking at the Falcon. "She's a survivor."

You waved Finn in first and then the droids followed. Poe hesitated, not willing to leave you and Hux alone together. You understood without having to hear him or look at him. His hand found yours and you looked at Hux, who could hardly hold his weight up against the wall. He grimaced at you. 

"Just kill me already," he said, venom in his voice. "I know you're dying to pull the trigger on me. Look at your pilot scum, he hasn't taken that weapon off of me since you freed him."

"He has every right to," you said. Finn appeared at your other side now. He pointed his blaster at Hux too. "And so does Finn. You and the First Order will control us no longer."

"If we shoot him, do you think they'll still know he was the rebel spy? And he let us out?" 

"They'll know," you said, and Finn shot him in the leg. He fell to the ground with a cry. "Trust me. He'll be dead in an hour." Your face remained hard and unchanged as you stepped over his bleeding body and walked towards the Falcon. 

As you got inside, Finn ran to the cockpit, Chewbacca right at his heels. Poe stepped up behind you and you let yourself shake the moment he put his hands on your shoulders. You turned, throwing your arms around his neck. He ignored the pain of the blaster wound in his arm and held you tightly. 

"Are you all right?" he asked. You were trembling, so you weren't sure if he could notice that you were shaking your head. But his hands covered the sides of your face and he pushed you back so that he could look at you. Tears dribbled down your cheeks as the reality of the last few minutes set in. "I know, I know. It's okay. Baby, I am so proud of you for fighting as hard as you did..."

You choked out a sound and sniffled. He let you hug him again. "I thought I was going to lose you today, Dameron. I thought... when he dragged me out of that room that I wasn't ever going to see you again."

"I know baby, I know," he said, and he said it over and over again and it overlapped with I love you I love you I love you I love you and promises that you wouldn't have to go through that again. And you were shaking and crying as the Falcon lifted up out of the grip of the First Order. 

"Poe! I need you here so I can grab Rey!" 

Poe pulled back and stroked your cheeks, wiping away all of your tears as he kissed you on the lips, on the jaw, and on the temple. You nodded, telling him that it was okay to go. You needed to pull yourself together. The fight wasn't over yet. As Poe ran to pilot the Falcon and Finn ran to grab Rey, you sank to the floor. BB-8 rolled over to you and leaned forward to comfort you. You smiled and wrapped your arms around him.

D-O bumped against your leg. "Sad or happy?" 

"Relieved," you said at first, but you nodded in thought and added, "Happy," because you knew he was talking about the tears that kept falling down your face. Somehow you had made it, and it felt like you were finally able to see the future that lay before you. 

*  *  *

"It was a coordinated incursion, Allegiant General," Hux said. Gauze was wrapped around the blaster wound in his leg but his face still leaked blood. He assumed it was from his nose. The blood from his mouth seemed to have dried and caked around the corner of his lips. "They overpowered the guards and forced me to take them to their ship."

"I see," Pryde said, lifting his chin. "And she..."

"Escaped," Hux said, swallowing hard. "She overpowered me and fled with the scum."

"She is the scum," Pryde said, whipping around to look at the General, "and she overpowered you?" He scoffed. "Get me the Supreme Leader." And he grabbed the gun from the stormtrooper beside him, turned around, and shot Hux directly in the chest. "Tell him we found our spy."

Hux slid across the floor. His eyes were frozen wide on the bright white lights above him. Warmth spilled from his chest; the temperature of it grew hotter and hotter until it felt like boiling water bubbling out of him. He twitched. It filled his throat. In the bright light above him, there was a shape. The hot gurgled in his mouth. The shape was you. You were so beautiful but so disgusting. He saw you smile at him. He loved you, he did, but love made him too weak and he was too young with too promising of a career before him. Not even you could steal that away from him. But now, it seemed that you were going to haunt him. The boiling hot blood spilled from his lips and his heart stilled after a single drawn out thud that jerked his body. But you were still coming towards him. Beautiful. Unforgiving. He hated you. And you pointed the blaster at his chest. He deserved it.

*  *  *

"I don't know why they're not following us," Poe said, shaking his head. "But I don't trust it." Chewbacca growled. "Landing gear's busted? How busted?"

It was busted enough that the landing you made was more of a crash. As you stepped out onto the grass, your hand found Poe's, and you saw the ghost-like figure of the destruction of the Death Star. Harsh waves of the sea it rested in lapped at the edges, grey and threatening. 

"What --- what is that?" D-O stammered. 

"It's the Death Star," Rey told him. "A bad place from an old war."

"It's going to take us years to find what we're looking for," Poe said, shaking his head.

"Only this blade tells," Rey murmured. She pulled the blade out of her bag and ran her finger on the flat side of the blade. She pulled at a tip on the edge and a complete half circle was pulled out. She held it up and moved it along the side of the remains until it fit in the shape of the ship. "The wayfinder is there."

A sound from a strange creature made you turn around quickly. "Heads up!" Poe warned, but everyone already had their blasters out and pointed directly at the people approaching. 

A woman with brown skin and hair glanced over your group. "Rough landing," she said. 

"I've seen worse," Poe said. 

"I've seen better," she said. "Are you Resistance?"

"That depends," Poe said.

"We picked up a transmission from someone named Babu Frik," she explained. 

"Babu Frik?" C-3PO said joyfully, "why, he's one of my oldest friends!" 

"He said you'd come. He said you were the last hope." You knew she was talking to Rey now.

"We have to get to that wreck," Rey said. "There is something inside there we need."

"I can take you there by water," she said, nodding.

"Have you seen the water?" Finn asked, raising his eyebrows. 

"Not now. Too dangerous. We can go first light tomorrow."

"We can't wait that long! We don't have the time," Rey said. 

"Or the choice," Poe said. "Let's get the ship fixed." He put his blaster away and gave your hand a gentle squeeze before he let you go. "Do you have any spare parts?"

"Some," she said. "I'm Jannah."

"I'm Poe," he said, approaching her. And you followed him. Of course you did. He turned. "This is ___. And that's Finn, Chewie, Rey... and our group of droids. C-3PO, BB-8, and D-O."

"Quite the group," she said. "Come on, let's take a look at that ship of yours."

* * *

"What a dreadful situation. Is everyday like this for you people? Madness."

"Did we ever find his volume control?" Poe asked. His hand skimmed around, searching for something.

"No, sadly," you said. You handed him the tool he was looking for. He mumbled a thank you. "And at this point, I'm not so sure we ever will."

"You are so rude," C-3PO said. "I just met you all and yet here you are..." You couldn't help but laugh, which brought a smile out of Poe.

"___!" Finn ran to you and grabbed you by the hand. He was out of breath and smiling. "Hey, can I borrow you for a second?"

"Uh, sure," you said, passing a tool to Poe. He gave you and Finn a weird look. "But you're kind of weirdin' me out, Finn..." He pulled your hand and you followed him until he got to where Jannah was sitting on the floor. Her eyes were wide and set on you. 

"You were First Order?" she asked. 

You froze where you stood. "I... was."

"Jannah was a stormtrooper," Finn told you. "They all were."

"You're a deserter just like us," she said. "I don't think you two understand what you meant to us. We escaped the First Order because we heard of FN-2187 and a high ranking officer that did the same before us," she said. "I don't even know what we were thinking when we... when we defied orders like that. It wasn't a decision, really. It was more like---"

"An instinct," Finn said. 

"A feeling," you added. 

Her grin grew wider and tears glistened in her eyes. "A feeling."

"The Force," Finn said. "The Force brought us here. It brought me to Rey, and her to Poe... and then it brought all of us together."

"You say that like you're sure it's real," she whispered. 

"It's real," he said. "I wasn't sure then, but I am now." You nodded your head in agreement. 

"Thank you," she whispered, and she blinked the tears away. 

You smiled and nodded. "It's good to meet you, Jannah." You turned and walked back to the cockpit, where Poe was struggling to tighten the band around his blaster wound. You approached him and his eyes lit up when he saw you. You kissed him on the lips gently and then started to work on tying the band around. "We need to get this looked at by a medic." 

"I think you do just as well as a medic," he said, but he winced when you touched his arm. 

"Sweet, but you're a terrible liar," you said. 

"I'd argue that I'm pretty good at lying." He turned to face you. "You holding up okay? How's your arm?" He touched your shoulder, and you frowned at the pain from when you had been shoved into the floor. 

"It's a little sensitive," you said. "It hurts like a dull fever."

"We'll get it looked at as soon as possible," he said, nodding. He kissed the top of your head and you leaned against him. You thought of the Force, and how it had brought you to Poe, and how ever since you were crashing on Jakku with him, it was always him by your side. Rarely were you separated. He was your home. The Force had brought you home before you even could have thought that home existed outside of the cold treatment of your father and Hux. Poe looked at you with a look in his eyes that made you wonder if he was thinking the same thing that you were.

BB-8's beeping, loud and panicked, pulled you apart. You both squatted down in front of your droid, who told you that Rey was gone. He hadn't seen her and he couldn't find her.

"What do you mean you haven't seen her?!" Poe asked. 

"The wreck," you said, dread filling you. "She went to go to it alone."

Poe cursed and stood up. "Finn! Finn, we have a problem here!" You, Poe, Jannah, and Finn ran out to the cliffside that overlooked the waves. Finn took a pair of scopes and peered through them and nodded tightly when he saw that Rey was traveling on top of the water, heading straight for the Death Star. 

"She took the skimmer?!" Jannah gasped in disbelief. 

Poe cursed again. "You're kidding me. You're kidding me, Rey!" You said Poe's name but he ignored you and stormed off back towards the Falcon. "What was she thinking?!"

"Poe, we gotta go after her!" Finn said.

"We'll get the Falcon fixed up and get out there as fast as we can," Poe said. 

"No, we're gonna lose her!" 

"Look, she left us! What do you want me to do? Swim!?"

"She's not herself. You have no idea what she's fighting!" Finn said. 

Poe turned around. "And you do?"

"Yeah," Finn said. "I do. And so does Leia."

"Well I'm not Leia," Poe said. 

"That's for sure." Finn glared at him --- completely unforgiving --- and turned around. Before you even looked at Poe, you knew that he was hurting now. 

"Poe," you said, and Finn walked up the rest of the hill, back towards Jannah. Poe kept his head down and stomped towards the Falcon. "Poe, please stop and listen to me---"

"Do you know what she's going through?" Poe asked. "Is it just something I'm too stupid to get?"

"I do understand, I think," you said, struggling to walk fast enough to keep up with his speed. "But I also understand where you're coming from. You don't want to risk our lives because Rey doesn't listen. I know that. But---"

"But you're taking Finn's side," he guessed, and he couldn't even bother to look at you as he lifted up his hand. "You know what? Go see how it works out, following Rey every chance you get. I know she's all the Resistance ever wanted in a leader --- but guess what? She defies orders more than anyone that I know. More than me. She puts all of us in danger because she gets these risky ideas and she doesn't even stop and think that she has an entire team here waiting to back her up because she is so caught up in her own anger and revenge that she doesn't dare think about any of the rest of us that have people we want to avenge too! So go ahead and follow her, ___. You'll realize pretty soon that it's suicide to go where she goes."

You stopped walking, and he didn't pause. He stomped back towards the Falcon and went inside, and he didn't even turn to look at you. He didn't bother to listen to what you had to say. You felt your group of friends fall apart. Poe and Rey were too similar and yet too different. Of course you were always going to obey Poe more than Rey. He was a rank higher than you were. But he shouldn't divide the group further. Maybe the best thing to do was go to Rey's aid. Not because she needed it, but because she deserved to have her family right behind her. Just like Poe did. Just like Finn did. Just like you did.

"___?" Finn called. 

"I'm coming," you said. You turned around and walked up the hill. If the roles were reversed, Rey would follow you. There wasn't any doubt in your mind.