Episode 10: The Balance

Chapter Sixteen

Rey couldn't understand why Poe was so upset. 

"What are you talking about? I just saved your ass and his, plus any number of people on this Base and you aren't even going to say thank you?! Who cares how I did it?! " She was stunned by his lack of gratitude for what she had done. 

Poe didn't answer her but turned away, pulling a radio out of his jacket and summoned the medical staff. "Check them please, carefully, and help any you can. Make them comfortable. We will also need to move the bodies and search them for any identification."

Finn was sitting on the ground looking confused, "What's he so annoyed about?" he queried. 

Rey had no answer for him. "I threw him back out of the way, it was probably a bit hard but there wasn't a lot of time . . . "

"No, it has to be more than that," Finn replied. "If I'm honest he looked kind of scared of you. What did you do while I was out?"

"Nothing. I fought, that's all. The only way I could think of to get you out of harm's way without you being hurt was to put you to sleep, sorry about that by the way, and then I took them on. What was I supposed to do? Let them shoot you? No-one else was coming up with anything." Rey could feel her annoyance growing, she had single-handedly saved them, again, and did Poe thank her? No, not even a little. 

She extended a hand to Finn and pulled him to his feet so they could move out of the way of the medics now trying to establish if they could help anyone. One approached Rey, "You should get those cuts cleaned and looked at," she told her. 

"I'm fine, really, but thank you," Rey replied, knowing that it would be relatively simple to heal herself as the two injuries were not deep. The medics had bigger issues to treat so they left her to it. 

Poe finally spoke again sharply. "Comms room please, you two," and started walking without waiting for their answer. 

Finn turned and looked at Rey, "I guess we'd better go," he said shrugging. They followed in Poe's wake and Rey tried to ignore the heads popping out of doors on their way and staring at the blood stains that covered her. 

The room was mostly in darkness with very few people on duty during the night. Poe had got there first and was sitting at a table with a lamp, head in his hands. Rey approached him, "Let me fix your arm?" she asked. She was reaching out to put her hands on him when he pulled sharply away from her. 

"I'd rather you didn't for the moment." He wasn't looking her in the eye. 

Finn spoke up. "Poe what's going on?" he asked. "It looks like Rey just came to the rescue, my rescue to be precise, and you are being really weird about it."

"You didn't see her in action." Poe's face was grim. "As you know before I knew you I ran into Kylo Ren on Jakkuu. Lor San Tekka had the map to Luke and gave it to me, but the First Order turned up. Tekka stood up to Ren and he struck him down where he stood before giving the order to kill everyone. Everyone! I tried to help but Ren froze my blaster bolt in mid-air and held me in place. Finn, you were there, you saw how horrible it was. I'd never seen anything else like it until today." He was looking down at his hands, remembering the torture that had followed at Kylo Ren's hands. 

Finn turned to Rey looking confused. "You can freeze blaster bolts in mid-air?! That's amazing." 

"Actually I didn't know that I could do that until just now. I was working on instinct," Rey replied. 

"How can you do something like that without knowing that you can do it?!" Poe was even more worried than he was before. "Look, Rey, I'm saying this as a friend . . ."