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chapter thirty-four: sweet dreams
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"HEY, MAMA," INDIRA SAYS, waving in the direction of the camera shaped node in EV-1's chest. The little droid hovers in the air a few feet away from Kali's bed, filming the holo message that Indira had been procrastinating on sending for more than a week. "It's super late at night right now. Or maybe it's early; I honestly don't know. But, I was thinking about you today. It's been a while since I reached out and I know you don't like it when I do that, so I wanted to just let you know that I'm doing ... okay."

The words sound hollow and even though Indira knows her mother can't see her, she forces a smile onto her face. "I won't lie to you: things have definitely been rough around here, but I'm alright. We had a funeral today for Han and the pilots that died on Starkiller, which was pretty sad. But on the bright side, no one else has died recently, so that's a plus! And there haven't been any more assassination attempts either, which is always a good thing."

Her hands are busy, brushing through the dark, wet strands of hair on her shoulders; still damp and tangled from her recent shower. Her hair always becomes a knotted mess like this after she washes it and brushing through it is often painful, but she finds it soothing right now; a task that is entirely ordinary and routine to keep her mind occupied while she speaks.

"I hope things are still going well for you," Indira adds, tugging at a particularly difficult knot and wincing when it finally pulls free. "Tell Kes I say hello. And tell him Poe says hi, too. He told me that he plans on calling home soon, but he's been really busy with training the new pilots lately, which has been stressful for him. But, they're improving. Sort of. I think ... I hope."

She lets out a defeated sigh, tossing the brush down onto the messy sheets before rubbing her temples. "I don't know, Mama," Indira admits. "This whole ... rebel thing; I'm not sure that I'm cut out for it. I'm definitely not cut out to be a soldier — but I want to help people and I want to do what I can in this fight. It's just hard sometimes, you know? I feel like I'm surrounded by secrets and lies everywhere. Something has been bothering Poe, but he won't talk to me about it; Leia and I still aren't on speaking terms; and I feel like I'm going to spontaneously combust any time someone so much as mentions the name Luke Skywalker."

Indira pauses her tirade to run a hand through her hair, snagging on some of the unruly curls. "I don't mean to worry you," she says, calmer now. "And I'm glad that you're safe on Yavin Four. But I miss you so much it hurts. A very selfish part of me wishes that you were here, but knowing that you're far away from this mess is one of the few comforts I have that lets me sleep at night."

She rubs tired hands over her face before giving the camera a wobbly smile.  "I love you," she tells her mother, "across all the stars and skies keeping us apart. I'll send you another message as soon as I can, okay?"

     Indira doesn't say anything else after that; just signals for EV-1 to cut the tape as she flops back on Kali's bed, letting her hair fan out behind her head like a messy halo. She sighs, inhaling the scent of her friend's sheets before forcing herself to stand. In response to the sudden movement, her muscles scream in protest; still sore and aching from the hours she'd spent attaching the new booster that she and Rose had designed onto Poe's ship.

Originally, Indira had wanted to wait a bit longer before hooking the booster up to the ship's engine, but after the funeral, she had been agitated and her hands itched to do something that would keep her mind occupied. So, she'd paid Rose a visit, knocking on the younger girl's door after dinner, and the feisty little tech agreed to help Indira start the process of getting the device hooked up to the T-70's engine. They spent several hours hard at work, until Rose had to tap out when her sister dragged her off to bed. Indira hadn't been ready to sleep then, so she had opted to stay up and continue working. Her mind was still too loud and she needed the distraction to keep her thoughts quiet for just a couple more hours.

Once she'd finished hooking up the last wire and screwing on the last bolt, she'd taken a hot shower and changed into a fresh pair of clothes. By the time she finished that, it was deep into the early hours of the morning. Indira knew then that she should get some sleep, but she was putting that off for as long as she could ... which is how she'd found herself sending a long overdue message to her mother.

     The distractions had worked, for a small amount of time, but Indira ultimately wound up feeling suffocated by the solitude. Without Kali, her room is lonely and empty — hollow, even — and she doesn't like that feeling one bit. It reminds her too much of her darkest days at the Hosnian flight academy; back when she'd still thought her mother was dead and Kali had left the school behind to become a rebel. Those had undoubtedly been some of the worst months of Indira's life, isolated inside a darkened basement with nothing but machines and her books to keep her company.

     As if sensing her maker's troubled thoughts, EV-1 lets out a string of concerned beeps as she hovers in the air just near Indira's shoulder. The technician tweaks her antenna, forcing a smile to replace the miserable expression on her face before nodding.

     "It's definitely time for bed," Indira agrees, yawning and stretching so she could feel the ache that had settled in between her shoulder blades. "I'm finished here, anyways."

     Sounding pleased, EV-1 zooms towards the doors of her quarters just as Indira begins to pull back the sheets of her own bed. When she realizes that EV is still waiting for something, she pauses halfway between climbing underneath the covers, and raises a brow at the droid.

     "Where do you think you're going?" She asks, setting her hands onto her hips.

The droid responds, perplexed, and Indira's shoulders droop at her reply.

"No, I wasn't planning on going to Poe's room. I think he might need some space from me right now," she adds, cringing at the memory of the terse conversation they'd had in the hangar, "so I think that I'm just going to sleep here tonight —"

     The words hardly leave her mouth before EV-1 comes flying back towards her, badgering her incessantly by hovering in circles around Indira's head and scolding her as well as a droid can. Indira doesn't particularly appreciate the sass from her own creation, but she can acknowledge that the sentiment her droid voices is valid. Grudgingly, she rolls off the bed and begins to pull her shoes on.

      "Fine, I'll go see him," she says, lacing up one boot and then the other.  "Kriff, you're annoying. If he's asleep, I'm going to leave, so just know that ahead of time. In fact, he probably won't even answer the door and this will wind up being a huge waste of time — ouch!" Indira yelps as the droid prods her up from the bed with one of its retractable metal arms. "I said alright, Evie! Stars and skies, who programmed you to act that way? Me? You know damn well that is not true; otherwise you wouldn't be such a huge pain in my ass all the time —"

     The two of them continue bickering in hushed tones as they leave Indira's quarters, arguing back and forth with one another until they're just outside of Poe's door. Indira knows that her prints have been approved for the bio-scan, but making herself reach out and place her hand onto the scanner is far more difficult than she would like to admit. She desperately needs things with Poe to be okay — now more than ever before, while everything else seems to be falling apart — and she's terrified that somehow, she will inevitably mess everything up.

     Holding her breath, Indira forces her hand onto the scanner and exhales softly when the door opens. The entrance to Poe's quarters is dark, so she tiptoes in quietly until she sees light pouring out from the crack beneath his bedroom door and she knocks gently on the frame.

Soft footsteps sound on the other side before the door opens, revealing Poe's familiar frame. He's wearing his pajamas, but he looks very, very tired; hair tousled and eyes bleary in a way that suggests he most likely was very close to dozing off before she arrived. "Hey," he says, perking up slightly. "I was just getting ready to knock out. Once it hit three, I figured that you might not be turning in."

      "You were waiting up for me?" Indira asks, feeling guilty with the knowledge that she had nearly chosen not to show up at all. When he nods yes in confirmation, she feels even worse and makes a mental note to be sure to thank EV for her meddling. "You didn't need to do that."

     Poe shrugs and steps back, allowing her to walk into the room and shut the door with a soft click. "Couldn't sleep anyways," he says and although the words are spoken in a light tone, Indira has heard him say them far too many times in the past few months to let them slide again. "You know how it is sometimes."

     "Sometimes, yes," she agrees, watching him take a seat on the edge of his bed. In the low lighting of his room, Poe Dameron looks completely and utterly exhausted. Dark circles surround his eyes and cast harsh, bruise-like shadows on his cheekbones. "But not all the time."

     He heaves a long-suffering sigh before smiling at her wearily. "You trying to stage a sleep intervention for me, sweetheart?"

     "No," she says, taking a seat next to him on the bed before placing a hand on his shoulder. "But be honest with me, please. When's the last time you slept? Like, really slept — the whole night through?"

     He shrugs and shakes his head. "Hell if I know," he answers truthfully before letting out a bitter laugh. "Yavin Four, maybe, when I had that concussion."

     From his corner of the room, BB-8 chimes up in addition to Poe's words. Immediately, Indira shoots Poe a worried glance. "Is that true?" She asks. "You haven't been sleeping well for months?"

     He seems too exhausted to even argue. "It might have been months," he concedes.

     "Kriff, Poe," Indira mutters, pushing some of his hair out of his face. He slumps forward at her touch, resting his forehead against her shoulder and her fingers find their way into his hair, brushing the unruly curls back. "Why didn't you tell me? You need to sleep."

     "I can't," Poe says, the words muffled by the fabric of her sleep shirt. "I know you don't want to hear that, but I can't. Whenever I sleep, I dream. And whenever I dream, I'm back there," he continues, voice catching on the last word, "on that ship with him and he's inside my head, laughing as he pulls my brain apart. I scream, but he won't stop and it hurts. I can't sleep, Indira. Not anymore." He looks up at her with bleary, red-rimmed eyes. "Do you understand now?"

"Oh, Poe," she murmurs. This is what he had been hiding — that his time spent as a captive with Kylo Ren was still plaguing him; infecting his dreams and poisoning his mind every time he tried to close his eyes. It all makes sense to her now now; the distractedness, the fatigue, the nights and mornings when she found him missing from the bed when she woke. He'd been suffering alone, not saying a word, and she'd hardly noticed.

"Sometimes, I feel like he's still inside my head," he confesses, voicing his deepest, darkest fears aloud for the first time. "Like he broke something inside me and no matter what I do, I'll never be whole again."

"He didn't," Indira says fiercely, cupping his face in her hands. "Listen to me, Poe. You got away from him. You're safe now. He's never going to hurt you again."

"Then why can't I sleep?"

"Let's just try," she suggests, coaxing him to lie back on the bed and lay his head down on the pillow. Poe sighs, shoulders loosening as Indira curls up behind him and slings an arm over his chest to hold him close. "Just for a little bit, close your eyes. I'll be right here with you. And if Kylo Ren even thinks about coming anywhere near you, BB-8 and I will fight him off — isn't that right, BeeBee?"

The round astromech gives an enthusiastic — and somewhat disturbing — response that has Poe's eyes shooting open. "Hey," he says, trying and failing miserably to be stern with the droid. "I'm gonna let it pass this time, but I don't care what kind of language Artoo taught you; I don't want you throwing those words around lightly, alright?"

Indira covers her face with her hands in an attempt to hide her own laughter, but when BB-8 replies with a disgruntled string of beeps and whirs, she can't stop herself from laughing out loud. The sound escapes her lips in an unflattering snort that causes Poe to give her an incredulous look before he, too, bursts into laughter and the two of them collapse back onto the bed in a fit of giggles that makes her eyes run and her stomach hurt.

It takes them several minutes to calm down, but eventually Indira convinces her stubborn pilot to lie back down and close his eyes. She turns off the light on the bedside table before returning to her spot in the bed, curling up behind Poe and throwing an arm and a leg over his frame for extra support. Eventually, she feels his breathing start to slow into steady, peaceful inhales and exhales that let her know he's fast asleep.

     It's okay, she thinks, allowing herself to close her eyes and drift off with him. We're okay. As long as we have each other, we'll get through this. Together.

UNFORTUNATELY, NEITHER of them gets enough rest for it to be considered a full night's sleep, but it isn't nightmares or bad dreams that rouse Indira and Poe from their sleep a few short hours later. Instead, it's the sound of someone pounding on the door; loud, sharp, and insistent. Poe lets out a disgruntled groan, rolling out of bed before shuffling towards the door. Indira quickly follows; nearly bumping into him when he stops abruptly. The door slides open, revealing two female figures standing in the hallway. One is familiar — Indira would know all five foot, one inch of Leia Organa anywhere — but the other is hidden by a dark hood that obscures her face from view. Poe's bleary gaze drifts back and forth between the two of them before he shakes his head and rubs at his eyes.

"General Organa?" He asks, voice scratchy with the remnants of sleep. "Wha'sgoin'on?"

      "I'm sorry to wake you both," the general says apologetically; not even batting an eyelash at the fact that her niece had stumbled out of bed with one of her most trusted commanders. "I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't absolutely necessary, but I'm afraid that we don't have much time."

      "Time?" Poe repeats and the hooded girl shifts her weight from foot to foot impatiently. "Time for what?"

      "The First Order," Leia informs them grimly. "They're planning an attack — one we can't hope to fend off right now. I thought we'd have longer, but my intel was wrong. We have to evacuate the base."

      "Oh, shit," Poe mutters, forgetting to watch his language in front of his superior. "How'd you find out?"

     "A rather unorthodox secondary source," the general says wryly, casting a wary look at Indira. "Which brings me to my second point: I know you aren't going to be happy with me because of what I'm about to tell you, but I need you to trust me on this."

     "Of course," Poe says immediately. "Anything you need, General."

      Her aunt narrows her gaze at Indira. "Both of you."

      "I do," Indira replies and she means it. Because despite their disagreements and squabbles, Indira knows that her aunt is far more capable and knowledgeable than Indira could ever hope to be — even if they don't always see eye to eye on everything. "I trust you."

     Leia lets out a sigh of relief. "Good," she says. "Because I'm not sure how well this is going to go over with the rest of the Resistance and I'm going to need allies."

     Her last words make Indira's brow furrow. "Why?" She asks suspiciously. "What's going on? What's happened?"

      Seeming impatient with the conversation, the cloaked figure standing beside Leia gives a huff before pushing her hood back to reveal her face. Long blonde hair tumbles over her shoulders as the girl shakes her head, clearing away the stray pieces of hair that have fallen into her eyes. Indira's mouth drops open as she recognizes the girl's familiar pale, pointed features and piercing brown eyes.

      "She's talking about me," Raena Nhagy says, arching a brow at Poe and Indira's shocked expressions.

     "Nhagy," Poe says, completely dumbstruck. "I thought you were dead."

     The former First Order assassin laughs, but there's no humor to it. "Oh, I was," she assures him. "And unless you and your merry band of rebels want to end up dead too, you should listen to your general."

     "You brought her back here?" Indira demands, looking at her aunt with a mixture of bewilderment and betrayal in her expression. "I thought you let her go."

     "We can discuss it more later, if you'd like, Indira," Leia replies drily. "But we have an entire base to evacuate right now. I think that particular conversation can wait."

     Indira scowls before looking over the Nhagy girl's haphazard appearance. To put it bluntly, she looks like shit, but Indira still isn't convinced by her sudden change of heart. "Why should we trust you?" She asks, jutting her chin towards the assassin. "After everything you've done to help the First Order, give us one good reason to put our faith in you."

     Nhagy's face hardens into an impenetrable mask. "I'll give you several," she replies, ticking them off on her fingers. "Because you need me. Because I know your enemy better than anyone else."

Her hands drop to her shirt, unbuttoning the top few buttons to reveal a jagged looking scar; one that had mostly healed over, but was still red and angry in contrast to her pale skin. "Because Commander Ren betrayed me, so I am now betraying him."

She stares Indira down, raising a defiant brow. "Because I am the last of the Nhagy and I will not stop until I kill Commander Kylo Ren with my own bare hands. Any further questions?"

     Her words take Indira aback and she looks to her aunt with wide eyes. Leia's expression is hard and unreadable, but she nods to confirm Nhagy's words. Indira swallows, unsure of what to say, and reaches up to touch the familiar pendant around her neck for comfort.

     "Holy shit," Poe states, breaking the stunned silence around them by summing up all of Indira's thoughts in two words.

     "No questions?" Nhagy asks and the couple wordlessly shake their heads in unison. "Good. My advice is that you hurry up and get your asses moving."

     "She's right," Leia agrees. "We've already wasted too much time." The older woman removes a hidden comm link from her sleeve and raises it to her lips, speaking into it in hushed tones. "Admiral Ackbar, this is General Organa. The First Order has found us. Sound the alarm. We need to clear the base, now!"

EDITED ON:
03.10.20