Serendipity (Poe Dameron Fanfic)

22. Next Stop

We hid in an asteroid belt for a time, gathering ourselves. We lost Chewie, one of the pillars of the Resistance and someone I considered a close friend. And one of the last connections we had to one of the greatest men I had met, Han Solo, who I missed greatly as well. Both were great in their own ways and served the Rebellion in honorable ways.

Poe interrupted my thoughts when he came to find me. I had been posted up in my bunk, staring at the roof above me when he scooted next to me, forcing himself into the already cramped space.

"You're doing okay?" Poe asked as he got comfortable.

"Yeah," I murmured. "I just miss Chewie."

"Were you close to him?" Poe asked.

"In some ways," I replied. "I had known him since I joined the Rebellion. He's been there since the beginning of the Rebellion so he's a veteran of this kind of stuff."

Poe took my hand. "I'm here for you and I love you too. You know that, right?"

I looked over at him and smiled a little. "Yeah, I do. I love you, too."

"After we've won this war, we get married and live on a farm on a nice planet," Poe said. "How does that sound?"

"It sounds lovely," I replied, a small smile growing on my face. "Peaceful as well. We'll find somewhere that we can have the best life. We've been through enough as it is."

Poe grinned at me. "Lots of kids, too. We need help on the farm and I don't feel like hiring help."

I snorted. "Kids? How many?"

"As many as we'd like." Poe held up three fingers. "But a minimum of three. Sounds like a good size for a family."

I took his hand. "We'll make it happen. After this is all over, we'll settle down and have kids. We just need to survive this."

Poe squeezed my hand as tight as he could. "And we will. I'll make sure of it. I don't want to lose you or let you live without me."

I kissed his cheek. "You're one good boyfriend to call my own. Did you know that?"

"I do know." Poe stared into my eyes. "You're the love of my life."

I smiled but looked up at the bunk above me. "I'm scared."

"I am too," Poe said. "But we have to get through this. We have hope."

His hand squeezed mine and, even though I was scared to my core, I knew Poe was right in a way. We had to have hope and I had to trust in the Force. That was what I was taught - trust in the Force and focus on my abilities. I was a Jedi.

"Let's get this done then," I said.

Poe got up and held out his hand. I took it and we joined the others, hand in hand.

As we joined the others, Poe said, "We only got eight hours left. So what are we going to do?"

"What can we do?" Finn asked. "We have to go back to base."

"We don't have time to go back," Poe said. "We're not giving up. If we do that, Chewie died for nothing."

"Poe, Chewie had the dagger," Finn replied.

"Then we find another way," I said.

"Well, there isn't," Finn said. "That was our only way to find the Wayfinder and we don't have it."

"So true," C-3P0 said. "The inscription lives only in my memory."

We all looked at him and I said, "Hold on. The inscription that was on the dagger is in your memory?"

"Yes, Master Naaraa," C-3P0 replied. "But the translation of a forbidden language cannot be retrieved. That is short of a complete redacted memory bypass."

"A complete what?" Finn asked.

"It's a terribly sinful and dangerous act," C-3P0 replied. "It's a performed on unwitting droids by dregs and criminals."

"Let's do that," I said, C-3P0 whipping in my direction.

"I know a black market droidsmith," Poe said.

"A black market droidsmith?" C-3P0 exclaimed.

"But he's on Kijimi," Poe muttered.

"What's wrong with Kijimi?" Finn asked.

"I had a little bad luck on Kijimi," Poe tried to explain but was hiding something. We all looked at him with suspicion. "But if this mission fails, it's all been for nothing. All we've done, all this time . . ."

I rubbed his shoulder. "We're all in this. Until the end."

Finn and Rey made eye contact. Rey stood up after a few seconds, taking Finn's hand. "For Chewie."

Finn tried to place a hand on Poe's shoulder but Poe brushed him off, agreeing on hands. I took Poe's before reaching out to take Rey's hand.

Together, we said, "For Chewie."

Poe squeezed our hands. "Kijimi."

He turned and went off to the cockpit. I watched him go, beginning to worry about him. There was something off about him. I wanted to find out what was wrong but I had a feeling that he wasn't going to say. He was being guarded about something and I wanted to get it out of him before we made it to our next stop. We were together and I hoped he didn't hide anything from me.