Give a little time to me

The Recovery

A/N - Finn learns how to get by without Poe, and he even manages to move on and start a relationship with someone new, until something happens that changes everything. So yeah, shit goes down.

Dear Poe,

I got your letter, unlucky letter # 13, your final goodbye. I don't know how you ever thought that I might want to forget you, or erase you from my memory, and frankly even if I did you are far too spectacular to ever really forget. And I don't want to forget. Even though sometimes I miss you so much I want to wash my brain with bleach to try and erase the part where you left, I will never, ever want to forget you. I want to hold on to our relationship, and everything we had. Every moment, every word, ever last second, because it was all wonderful. Even the parts where I missed you, and I worried about you, the highs and the lows, I want to remember them all because they were ours. They belonged to us, and if you aren't going to be here, then I'm sure as hell going to remember you as much as I can.

It was Rey's idea to write a letter. She thinks it might help me come to terms with everything a little better. She's been reading far too much stuff online, but I know that she means well, so I decided to go along with her idea. Surprisingly enough, writing to you is helping, although it feels a little too much like you're still alive, and I know that the point is to let you go.

It's been two months now, and even though it still aches when I hear your name, when I sleep at night and I feel the emptiness in my bed, when I see someone with hair that's perfectly messy, when BeeBee barks at me and imagine the way you barked back at her, when I stop by your dad's bakery and I see your face in his, even though all of that still makes me ache, I'm learning to live with it. I don't cry anymore when I see a picture of us on my phone, or when one of the songs you sang to me plays on the radio, which is something, I guess, but it still hurts so much to know I'll never hold you again or hear your laugh or read your writing for the first time, unless the actual letter # 13 miraculously shows up.

I'm learning to live with the hole in my heart where you're meant to be, because what more can I do but endure the pain? What more can I do but learn to live through it?

At night I look at the stars through my bedroom window and I think of you...

***

After the first letter Finn started writing to Poe more and more. He wrote about the trivial things like what he did at work and the bigger things like Rey getting together with Jessika, and somehow it helped. Each time he wrote a new letter he would stash it away in his drawer in a small bundle next to the bundle of letters Poe had written him, and as the months slipped by, Finn could feel himself healing slowly but surely.

As they approached the one year mark of his death, Finn had begun to feel more confident again, happier as the pain in his chest faded to a dull ache. It still hurt when Poe's favourite songs came on the radio and Finn was hit with a wave of nostalgia, taken back to the lazy mornings when Poe would get up to make breakfast, dancing around the kitchen and singing as he poured coffee and flipped pancakes. It still sent a pang through him when he caught sight of Poe's beautiful handwriting on the letters he'd sent as he slid a new one into the drawer. But it hurt a little less.

Soon Finn's letters changed tempo, becoming more upbeat and happy, and their subject shifted slightly, until one day, he wrote one final letter to Poe, taking a deep breath as he slid the letter into the drawer with all the others, and exhaling as he closed it, as if he was letting go of Poe finally, breathing him out of his soul. Poe would always hold a piece of his heart, but it was time to move on. It was time to carry on with his life.