Give a little time to me

The Letter

A/N - Finn learns to cope with Poe being gone. This is just angst and sad stuff. Sorry.

There wasn't a funeral, because there wasn't a body to be buried. There was, however, a service to honor his life, a service of remembrance that was so sparsely populated that it seemed there was little point having it at all.

How could Poe, this charismatic, beautiful man, have possibly only impacted the lives of his father and the people he flew with. Didn't he have an extended family? A massive collection of friends? A swarm of adoring fans? A man like him must have charmed the pants off everyone he met, and yet there were less than 20 people in attendance.

In the end, Finn had declined to speak, instead letting Poe's friends speak, since they had clearly known him for much longer, though the brevity of their relationship didn't stop him from crying as though there was a tsunami raging behind his eyes when his Jess spoke fondly and brokenly about his bravery in the field, about his stupid hero complex, about how amazing he was, and about how much he would be missed, as she tried desperately to keep her voice steady as she spoke, wiping away tears angrily as though they were a betrayal of her fierce personality. It didn't stop him from aching inside when he met Poe's dad for the first time, and he felt a bitter twist in his heart when he wished that Poe could be there to introduce them to eachother, and introduce him as his boyfriend. It didn't stop him from almost breaking down as they left, and it seemed Rey's hand squeezing his own gently, comfortingly, was the only thing stopping him from screaming out.

When they back to their apartment, Finn had practically torn off the black jacket, before stopping entirely, staring at the letter in Rey's hand as she walked through the door, flicking through the various pieces of mail from their mailbox until her eyes finally landed on the one that had caught Finn's eyes.

Silent tears tracked down his cheeks as he recognised the familiar cursive writing, the collection of stamps littering the envelope from where it had been shuttled from country to country, and the small number etched in the corner of the envelope.

They had taken to numbering the letters not long after Poe had gone away, since they often arrived late and out of order. The small number on this letter read #13, a letter Poe had been insistent he had written, but that had never reached Finn. A letter that he had joked was cursed because of the 13 in the number. A letter which now seemed to arrive from beyond the grave.

"Oh, Finn." Rey looked up from the letter to glance at him apologetically.

"It's from him." He whispered and Rey looked back down the letter as though she wasn't sure whether to give it to him or not. "It's his." Finn had choked out, hot tears coursing down his cheeks.

"Finn, I..." Rey whispered, but she couldn't seem to find the words to comfort him.

"I want to read it." He choked out eventually.

"You don't have to." Rey tried to soothe him gently, still holding the letter in one hand.

"Yes." He replied. "Yes I do." He nodded, raising one hand to wipe the tears from under his eyes, dampening the sleeve of his black shirt with enough tears to fill a river. Without another word, Rey handed the letter to him, and he stared at it with some kind of reverence, before taking it and walking to his room, placing it on his bedside table wordlessly. Rey followed him quietly into his room to find him curled up on his bed, now changed into a pair of sweatpants and one of the shirts he had 'borrowed' from Poe, sobbing quietly into his pillow.

"Oh, Finn." She sighed, her heart aching to see how broken he seemed. She gently climbed onto the bed, lying down next to him to pull him into a tight hug, her arms wrapping around his waist as he shuffled back gently into her embrace. Rey was slimmer than Poe, her arms were thin and wiry, as opposed to his strong, warm arms, and she was a little shorter, a little colder, but her presence was comforting nonetheless, and eventually he managed to fall asleep, with tears still drying on his cheeks.