Fire Meet Gasoline | Poe Dameron

Five

Hope

It's late when I find myself still walking around base looking for R2. For a droid who refuses to let me out of his sight he's quite happy to disappear now, aybe we've been a little at odds due to my career choices these past months, so I know this is a form of payback. Droids are programmed for loyalty but I dare say Luke altered some of that programming when he made R2 my official guardian on Naboo, to pull me into line and report back instead of blindly facilitating my poor choices.

If R2 is one thing, he is a droid who does not forgive or forget, and as it turns out he remembers Hondo Ohnaka and Boba Fett quite well and has quite explicitly told me off time and time again for working for them with very colourful language. I'm still convinced Luke altered his programming and I'd try to rewire it but it just feels wrong to do that to R2. To me he's more of a sentient being than most lifeforms and I'm not going to pick his wires apart just so he's easier to get on with.

He is my best friend after all.

I want to take off, to go somewhere to clear my head. Like Snap said, leaving and not coming back might be a bit excessive, but I need more time to wrap my head around the fact I'm no longer a captain and am likely going to be on permanent probation. Maybe I'll check in with my contacts to see if they've got any leads on the Irving Boys and where the Falcon could be, give it one last shot before facing the music, but I hate going anywhere without R2, and that's where Korrie finds me, in the hanger still looking for him.

"You're back," she says, not quite pleased but not as panicked as Brance. Although I can't truly blame her, she was one of the few who'd tried to help me and I'd shut her out. One of the only friends I had on Hosnian Prime as a teenager since she'd interned for Mom, just another one I cut out without any real reason to other than the fact I can't stand seeing someone look at me with pity, or something worse.

"Yeah," I say, managing a smile. "I um- I took a sabbatical."

"Sure," she says but she's too close to my Mom to believe that, everyone above a certain level of command knows just why I left even if it seems the rest of base believes I just conveniently went back to university. "The General is asking to see you in her office."

"Again?" I ask and she nods as I try to find a way out of it. "Tell her-"

"Tell her yourself," she says curtly and leaves me there before I can argue.

I purposefully take the long way to her office and this time Threepio is waiting for me by the door.

"Miss Hope, I am glad to see you."

"You too Threepio," I assure him but he stops me before I can go in.

"Now please, do mind your manners this time," he lectures. "I'd overheard your previous conversation and I am quite disappointed in you."

I look at the protocol droid in disbelief. "Really?"

"Yes, and I do not appreciate your sarcasm," he says pointedly as I raise my eyebrows at him. "A little courtesy goes a long way."

He catches my glare before I walk in only to be hit by a wave of betrayal when I open the door to find R2 there with Mom, but it's when I see the commander sitting across from her I become alarmed, wondering if this is about appropriate conduct. Although that should be the least of her worries.

"You asked to see me?"

"I have," she says and I see the recording on her desk of the Cato Nemoidia heist I pulled off and look at R2, realising he went behind my back to tell her just what I've been doing in the Outer Rims and know I should have seen it coming. He'd all but warned me he'd override my ship's controls to bring me home so this isn't a far stretch.