Until the Day I Die

~Until the day I die,

I'll spill my heart for you,

For you.~

Ben Solo and Poe Dameron had been friends for their whole lives. Throughout their childhoods to their adulthoods, they always promised to protect each other.

The Jedi and the pilot. Best friends. Brothers. Inseparable.

Poe was always the more celebrated between the two, his prodigious flying skills making him a legend across the Resistance with a fiery personality to match his reputation. Ben, unlike his shorter friend, was calm and collected, a thinker and a logician. He liked to analyze things, but he wasn't always great with words. They couldn't be more different, but each complemented the other's strengths and weaknesses.

And to Poe, Ben Solo was the only thing that completed him.

~As the years go by,

I race the clock with you.

But if you died right now,

You know that I'd die, too.

I'd die, too.~

Besides flying, Ben was the only thing that occupied Poe's mind. He often thought about how he should confess that he loved Ben. How to take their relationship to the next step.

Lately, though, Ben had been acting rather strangely. Differently. More torn. More conflicted. Anything that had troubled him in the past, he'd confided to Poe. But this he kept silent, no matter Poe's protests. Ben hardly talked at all to anyone now.

It was only when Ben took his starfighter off Hosnian Prime that he spoke three words to Poe. They were not the same three that Poe had planned on. "I need answers."

And then he left.

~You remind me of the times when I knew who I was.

But still the second hand will catch us,

Like it always does.~

Two years later, Poe Dameron met Kylo Ren. It was on the same forest moon of Endor that the Rebels had launched their final attack on the Empire. Poe had only been a child then, but he remembered his father telling him stories about the attacks on the Death Star.

Was it a coincidence that Poe was at the Endor station on the same night the Knights of Ren raided?

Poe was helping to organize evacuation teams. After a few unsuccessful response tactics, he made the decision as a leader to get as many people off the moon as possible.

How he wished Ben were here. He'd probably be able to fend off the Knights with the help of a few other Jedi, igniting his green lightsaber and - and -

No. Stop it, Dameron. Focus. You've got a mission to complete.

Poe made the last few background checks and boarded his own X-Wing, BB-8 whistling at him.

"Yeah, buddy, let's get out of here." Poe flipped some switches and started up his heavily modified X-Wing.

"Hey boss?" Poe's comlink staticked to life.

"Snap?" Poe frowned. "What's up?"

"Did Master Skywalker get out okay?" Snap Wexley asked. "We don't have a check on him."