Fire Meet Gasoline | Poe Dameron

Seven

Hope

Maybe in hindsight I went too far.

Do I feel remorseful? Not particularly. Do I feel disappointed in myself? Yes.

Am I a hypocrite? Very much so.

I sit with my knees tucked up to my chest looking out at the lake country from the balcony of Varikyno on Naboo. Moreso looking at my N-1, parked beside the Shiraya, barely resisting the temptation to go back to what I've been doing and not look back. Wondering if Poe's already told Mom what I've done. He seems to idolise her, he wants to prove himself to her, so of course he has.

He'd be on the Echo of Hope by now wondering where the hell I am, meanwhile I'm sitting here in the only place that still feels half like home. My grandmother's force signature is strong here, in a place where there's no darkness, only light. No darkness except for me.

And I look down at the blood on my clothes, the red staining the white, unable to bring myself to strip them off quite just yet. 

"I know R2," I say as he lectures me despite the Clone Wars era war crimes he's complicit in. "But I tried okay. I would have actually helped if he hadn't killed himself. I tried to do the right thing, and that was after he'd tried to kill me."

But R2 isn't too phased by violence, no, that's never been his issue. His issue has always been running away, and the simple fact I'm sitting here instead of going back to base to sort things out for the mission. 

"If we go back," I begin and point my finger at him. "And that is a heavy if. You are not going to snitch on me to Mom. I know that her and Luke told you to look after me and report back, and I know you've been mad at me for deserting, but I don't need a guardian anymore R2. I need a partner. If you could stand by and watch Mom and Luke kiss each other I'm sure you can keep this mess to yourself. You're my best friend R2, and I know you worry about me, but you know more than anyone how hard I've tried to be good. You know I don't want to be so angry, not like Anakin, especially not like Ben."

He gives a sad beep as I rest my head on his dome, looking out at the setting sun. 

After all these years, whenever I've taken things too far, I keep coming back to that night on Theron with Ben back when I was sixteen, after those men tried to take me for ransom. I hadn't been afraid, not of three mere men when I'd spent my entire adolescence being trained to defend myself against such abductions, but Ben... I had to stop him from committing a slaughter in the back alleys of the city. 

That was night I learned how deeply the darkness had corrupted my brother, the night I knew without any doubts in my mind where that darkness came from. Perhaps I'd judged him too harshly, but when I felt that his darkness was the same as Vader's how could I not be afraid?

"We're going home," I swallowed, trying to de-escalate the situation after my warning hots had forced them to scatter before he could cut them down. "And when we do you aren't going to get mad at Dad."

"He's the one still dealing with these lowlifes!" he argued and I stood there with my eyes shut as he raged "They were going to take you!"

"But they didn't," I said, having been more than proficient in self-defence at that point, with or without a lightsaber. "I would have handled it."

"How?" he asked me, not even attempting to keep his voice down. "Punching the guy didn't exactly work!"

"I would have handled it how we handled things," I said, punctuating my words so he knew exactly what I meant. "We don't need to resort to murder to deal with a group of thugs, Luke taught us better than that."