Force Destiny

Denial

"I never should have agreed to this!" Finn shouted as he stormed down the corridor, cup in hand, when he nearly collided with Rose. Her face brightened when she saw him, but he couldn't manage to return her smile. He was screaming on the inside in panic.

"Hey, handsome, Chewie said he can take next watch if you want to go back to the bunks," she said. "We could look through holomaps and find the perfect green world for a wedding, maybe sleep a little bit; you look exhausted." Running her hand over his sweat-glistening forehead and twirling her fingers through the curls at his temple, her soothing touch quieted the multitude of thoughts crashing through his mind. His beautiful fiancée knew exactly how to calm him like no one else could.

His agitation melted away with the tension in his shoulders as he found comfort in her touch. "More than anything, right now," he said, dropping his head to her shoulder. "I want to crawl in that bunk and forget the war. Everything is just so..."

"Complicated?" she offered, and he nodded into her shoulder. "The battles are simple. It's everything else in war that's complicated." Rose always had a way of taking his perspective and tilting it on its axis. She had become more to him than a person to save from the cause he had once sworn loyalty. She – along with Rey and Poe – had become his family, and though everything in him still wanted to protect them, she had helped him become part of something greater than any of them. Rose had given him something to believe in; a reason worth fighting for, and if it came to it, worth dying for. "Just remember," she whispered, "No matter who or what we're fighting, as long as I still have breath, I'll be right here beside you."

For the first time in his life, he felt like he was in the right place. Part of him knew that the war could end the lives of one or all of them, likely at the hands of the very man his best friend loved. If these were his last days, then he would still consider himself the luckiest man in the galaxy to have experienced it at all. He had hope that there was something beyond this war, a life worth living that made it all worth it. Holding Rose in his arms reminded him that he still had to be present in now, that he couldn't only rely on hope. It was difficult not to look to the horizon, to the 'after,' when all of their sacrifices would be worth it, but if he was going to ensure they all lived to see it, he couldn't stand by any longer.

He would not take another moment with his family for granted, and that only strengthened his resolve. He had only found these people because he had refused to fight for a cause he knew was wrong. Though he agreed with everything they were fighting for now, he couldn't reconcile his personal beliefs with what he knew Poe had planned. He loved Poe, like a brother, he would gladly give his own life to save the man. Standing by as he used Rey, however, was not something he could live with. Though he didn't know what move Poe had made, he knew enough to believe it was strategic, and likely wasn't good. "I think I have to stop him, Rose," he whispered.

Rose backed away from him to force him to look at her. She stared up at him with fear in her eyes. "Who, Finn? What's going on?"

Finn wanted nothing more than to tell her everything, but as colonel, he still wasn't ready to completely betray his general. Not yet. He knew she'd understand. "Poe's here," he said. "After what he did on Kamino." Rose was quiet, waiting patiently for him to continue. "Okay, let me back up. After everything that happened in the war room, Poe forced Rey to give him a vial that Kylo Ren had entrusted her with–"

"What happened in the war room?"

Finn took a slow breath, calming his nerves. "Remember the night before we left for Dantooine? When I went on that long walk until morning?" he asked softly. She nodded. "You know I saw Rey and Kylo together. You know what happened in that room. But what I didn't tell you was that when I walked in, he was holding her and she was looking at him... well, like you look at me. When she chose him over me, I left her room and kept walking. I actually ended up in that other temple we found, talking to myself for hours. I had to know that if I was betraying my best friend, that it was out of necessity and not anger. It felt like there was no right choice. I waited until dawn. When I realized it wasn't a secret I could keep, that you would be complicit to treason right alongside me, I went to Poe and told him that I saw her with our enemy.