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They dropped out of hyperspace and plunged right into battle. Red and green bolts of light zipped past Poe’s cockpit windows.

Poe released a curse under his breath and yanked the control stick backwards, forcing the X-Wing into a sharp upward spiral. Next to him, Snap and Jess broke away in opposite directions.

“This is Black squadron,” Poe yelled into the comm, “Resistance convoy, come in.”

The only response was static, so Poe switched from the open channel back to the encrypted resistance channel. “Status report,” he demanded.

“One First Order attack cruiser,” Snap said, “and at least eight TIEs.”

“How many of ours are left?” Poe asked as took aim at a TIE and pulled the trigger. Angry red laser bolts hit the TIE, which lit up the darkness in a magnificent explosion.

“Two out of the three cargo ships that sent the distress call are still online, one has sustained critical damage,” Jess said. “Half of the A-Wings that were protecting the convoy aren’t in fighting shape anymore.”

“Got it. Split up and destroy as many of the TIEs as you can. The larger ships aren’t that heavily armed.”

Poe cursed again when the ship’s systems started blinking furiously. BB-8 released a string of beeps. They’d lost half of the rear shield to a direct hit.

“BB-8, I can’t see him.” He turned his head around, trying to get a glimpse of the TIE behind him. “Jess?”

“Give me a second, boss.”

He pushed the control stick to the left and the ship went into a sideways roll. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of white and red. Seconds later, Jess’s victory cheer reached his ears.

“Thanks,” he laughed, and plunged back into the fight. He dove underneath a First Order cruiser and flipped the X-Wing upside down so that it looked like he was flying atop the ship’s hull instead of under it. He approached the end of it and cut the engines, turning the X-Wing sharply before firing them up again with the nose pointed in another direction.

He slammed back into his seat and narrowly avoided crashing into a TIE, changing course at the last possible second. The TIE’s pilot wasn’t so lucky and slammed into a phalanx of laser cannons, triggering a row of explosions that continued up until the bridge.

Poe had no time to celebrate.

“I’ve been hit,” Snap said, voice laced with static. “BB-unit is fried, heavy damage to all systems. The hit came from one of the cruisers.”

“Snap!” Poe said and steered the X-Wing toward the centre of the fight. “Where are you?”

The comm stayed stubbornly silent.

“Snap!” he tried again. Still no response. “Jess, can you see Snap?”

“Negative,” she said. “Wait, I think I do.” She cursed. “Looks really bad. He took a direct hit. There’s an actual hole through his wing!”

“Mark his location,” Poe ordered, and soon enough a blinking dot appeared on his navigation console. He steered the X-Wing towards the coordinates and gulped when he spotted his friend. Jess’s description had been accurate. Whatever had hit Snap, it had gone right through both layers of the S-Wing. There was no way he was able to jump into hyperspace in this state. Another thing caught Poe’s eye. The BB-unit had lost its head. The only reminder of it was a string of cables sticking out of the circular body.

“Did you see what hit you?” he asked. “Snap? Do you read me? Snap!”

“Some sort … energy bolt … brighter … couldn’t –”

The transmission cut off. Poe hit the comm unit.

“We have to get him out of here,” Poe said, a crease of worry appearing between his brows.

In that exact moment, a TIE swept down on him and showered him with laser bolts. Out of pure instinct, Poe yanked the control stick forward and dodged the majority of them.

“No time,” Jess exclaimed. When Poe’s eyes searched for her, he found another X-Wing, in close combat with a TIE.

Poe chased after the TIE that had fired at him and engaged him in battle. The TIE pilot was good. He dodged most of Poe’s shots, but didn’t manage to give any off himself. Finally, he came up with his last resort. He forced the X-Wing into a complicated series of turns, then gave off a single shot.

It severed the connection between the TIE’s cockpit and the solar panels, sending them spinning into opposite directions.

A strangled sound came out of the comm.

“Snap?” Poe asked.

“See … another –” Snap’s voice was nearly inaudible due to the static.

“Snap!” Poe craned his head back and spotted what Snap had been getting at. One of the First Order cruisers didn’t look like the others. It had something attached to the hull that looked a little like an oversized ion cannon. Now it was buzzing with energy, gathering power.

That’s when Poe realized it was, in fact, an oversized ion cannon, aimed directly at Snap. He cursed.

Snap wouldn’t be able to take another hit, so Poe made a split-second decision.

He pushed the control stick forward and put his X-Wing between Snap’s ship and the ion gun.

“Poe, what the hell are you doing?” Jess yelled at him. Poe responded by turning off his comm unit.

The ion cannon seemed to be fully charged now. It was glowing green. Then, a thin ray made its way towards him.

Poe braced for impact.

Then, everything went black, as if someone had pulled the power plug of his brain.

***

Voices faded in and out, through the haze. He didn’t understand any of the words they were saying.

He was wrapped in a fog, muting all sounds.

Once, he thought he recognized one of the voices, but it was gone too soon.

***

Poe’s eyes blinked open to bright white lights and someone clasping his hand in theirs. He let out a strangled noise, too tired for proper words.

A shadow next to him rose, leaned in closer, and Poe struggled to focus his gaze.

Poe didn’t know where he was, how he’d gotten there, anything. His memory of what had happened was blank. Panic rose in his chest. Had he been captured by the First Order again? Was he in another interrogation room, tied to a chair, Kylo Ren hovering next to him, eagerly awaiting more pain he could inflict upon him.

“You’re awake.” Finn’s voice was unexpectedly soft and Poe instinctively relaxed. Finn was here. That meant Poe was safe.

“What happened?” Poe croaked. His voice was hoarse and his throat felt as if it was as dry as Jakku.

Finn dropped one hand from his grasp around Poe’s and instead used it to grab a glass of water. Poe took a careful sip.

“You had me really worried,” Finn said.

Poe dug through his memory, but came up empty.

“What happened?” he tried again, more urgently. The water helped with his throat.

“You were in a fight,” Finn said. “Responded to a distress call from a convoy. Snap took a hit from an ion cannon. You took the second hit to save him.”

Poe sucked in a sharp breath. “Did it work?”

Finn nodded. “Jess shot the last TIE down. The cruisers fled soon after. She employed the convoy’s help to pull both of you out of the wrecks.”

Poe relaxed back against the pillows and looked around the room. It was white, sterile, without windows. “Are we on the D'Qar ?” he asked.

“Don’t change the topic.” Finn gave him a stern look.

Poe frowned. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?” He sucked in a sharp breath. “Someone didn’t make it, right? Who is it? Is –”

“Everyone is alright,” Finn said and took Poe’s hand in his own again. It calmed Poe more than he would have admitted to anyone.

“Then what is it?” Poe couldn’t suppress the edge to his words.

“You could’ve died!” Finn shot up from his seat, dropping Poe’s hand as he did so. “You could’ve died out there and the others wouldn’t have been able to save you and I couldn’t have done anything about it, and –” His voice broke. He’d started pacing, burying his fingers in his short hair.

He turned back to Poe. “You could’ve died, Poe,” he repeated and looked him in the eye.

Poe shrugged. “It wasn’t the riskiest thing I’ve ever done.”

Finn gaped at him and Poe got the distinct feeling that he’d said exactly the wrong thing.

“Are you kidding me?” Finn shouted. Poe flinched. Finn didn’t usually get loud when they fought. “Are you so damn selfish that you think your death would only affect you?”

Poe was silent. He didn’t know what to say to that. Dying had always been a possibility, he’d known what he’d get himself into when he’d joined the Resistance. He’d lost countless comrades, friends, people who were like family to him. Every time he climbed into his X-Wing, he knew that he might not return.

And yet, he’d made his choice, and he continued to choose every day. He believed in the cause, in his squad, in himself, enough to ignite his X-Wing’s engines and take off.

He didn’t regret his choice, couldn’t, even. In combat, he couldn’t let any doubts creep in and slow him down. A split second of hesitation might mean the difference between winning and losing, life and death.

One day, he was going to die, and if he died in a fight for the Resistance, then so be it. He might’ve preferred dying of old age after living a long, quiet life on some planet with someone he loved, and he might even have a specific person in mind, but if the universe decided that he should go down like this, he would go down fighting. But he’d also fight with everything he had to get the life he dreamed of.

But while the First Order was still out there, it wasn’t possible.

“I’m not sorry,” Poe said, “I had to save Snap. I believe in the Resistance, and I couldn’t let a good pilot, a friend, just die.”

Finn’s face transformed into a mask of stone. “Then I guess we have nothing to say to each other anymore. I’m on duty now, anyway.”

He left without saying goodbye.

Poe squeezed his eyes shut.

***

Three days later, the medical droid cleared Poe for duty, but reminded him to take it slow during the first couple of days.

Finn hadn’t visited him in sickbay again and Poe had loathed himself. He couldn’t blame him for worrying about him getting shot down, after all.

Jess and Kaydel, on the other hand, had visited him frequently. Even Leia had stopped by once, to scold him to be a little more careful next time.

He moved back into his quarters, a tiny shoebox of a room, only a bunk bed fit inside it, there was barely enough space to turn around. He sat down on his bed and stared at the wall across from him.

As if a switch inside of him had been flipped, a wave of exhaustion washed over him and his eyelids started drooping.

***

Hours later, Poe woke up disoriented.

In sickbay, he’d constantly been surrounded by beeping machines measuring his vital functions and the medical droid, moving in a variety of surr and soft metallic creaks. At the time, he’d found it annoying, but now it was unusually quiet without.

He glanced at the time.

0324 hours. The middle of night.

Barely anyone would be awake at this hour, only the night shift, monitoring the space around D’Qar, and some of the communication staff, manning the frequencies around the clock in case important intel came through.

And Finn might be awake, too.

Poe had rarely met anyone with a worse sleep schedule than himself, and he knew a lot of pilots. Most of the Resistance pilots were able to run on very little sleep, as they often simply didn’t have time to, because they had to execute urgent repairs on their spacecraft. They had trained themselves to fall asleep anywhere and anytime, a habit necessary if one wanted to catch a few hours of sleep, for instance during a pre-calculated hyperspace jump or when off-shift.

Finn had been exposed to a similar routine during his stormtrooper training, having to do drills or undergo a simulation unannounced, often at night. On top of that, Poe knew Finn suffered from nightmares about his time with the First Order. Despite Poe’s insistence that he wasn’t responsible for what he’d done, or what the entire First Order had done, he felt guilty about it.

More than once, Poe had woken him up from a nightmare in which he’d been back in the village on Jakku.

Poe was familiar with nightmares. He’d see friends, dying, or relive his torture with Kylo Ren, or his brain would come up with terrible scenarios, but he knew it was part of the price he was paying. Over the years, some of the nightmares had disappeared, others had been replaced with new ones, worse ones.

Sometimes, Finn didn’t sleep for days on end, out of fear of encountering something in his dreams, running on caf alone. Poe tried his best to order him to sleep, but Finn was stubborn.

Before Poe could change his mind, they were technically still in a fight, after all, he pushed the covers back and got up. He pulled on his jacket, but didn’t bother tying the laces of his boots, leaving his room and padding down the hallway.

He barely needed to think about turning right at the next intersection, his body remembering the way he’d walked so many times before.

When he finally stood in front of Finn’s door, he hesitated.

His hand hovered in front of the keypad next to the door. After taking a deep breath, he put the code in and was rewarded with a green light and the door sliding open.

Finn had given him the code, telling him he could show up whenever he wanted to.

The room was dark, the only light fell in through the door, from the hallway. Poe’s silhouette was faintly visible on the floor. He stepped inside and darkness surrounded him as the door closed.

He squinted, willing his eyes to adjust to the lack of light. He could make out a faint outline on the bed.

Finn, asleep.

Poe breathed in. While he would have appreciated the company, he was glad to know Finn was getting some much-needed rest. He was about to turn around and leave again, when he noticed something.

Finn’s breathing wasn’t even, instead coming shallow and ragged.

Poe froze on the spot. Was he having a nightmare?

Should he wake him up or leave him?

In the end, it wasn’t a choice at all.

He dropped his boots and jacket and sat down on the bed next to Finn, leaning back against the wall, and pulled his head into his lap. He carded his fingers through Finn’s hair, knowing it calmed him down.

His gaze fell on Finn’s face, twisted into a mask of horror. He briefly wondered what Finn was dreaming about as he continued running his fingers through his hair.

It seemed to work, Finn relaxed a little and stopped turning from one side to the other. His breathing evened out.

But suddenly, he tensed up again.

He mumbled something inaudible, and Poe’s fingers stopped dead. He leaned forward, desperate to catch what he’d said.

“Poe.”

It was barely above a whisper.

“Poe,” he whispered, again. “No.”

Poe froze.

Was Finn dreaming about him? And even worse, having a nightmare about him?

How could he ever think Poe was even capable of hurting him?

In his lap, Finn jolted awake. He literally shot up, into a sitting position, knocking his head into Poe’s.

Poe’s hand flew to his chin, just as Finn turned around to look at him.

“You’re here,” he said, just as Poe said, “you’re awake.”

They looked at each other.

There was a haunted look in Finn’s wide eyes, a shadow. It disappeared as soon as he focused on Poe and realised it was him.

“You’re alive,” Finn breathed, and the tension dropped from his shoulders.

Poe hesitated. “Yes? Why shouldn’t I be?”

Finn’s expression shifted again, from relief to something else, something Poe couldn’t quite decipher.

“Seriously?” Finn stared at him. “Have you already forgotten about what happened four days ago?”

Poe’s mind was blank.

“Are you really so self-absorbed and arrogant and careless that you don’t care at all?”

Poe got the feeling that they’d had this conversation before, and then he remembered.

“It’s alright, Finn,” he said, “nothing happened. We all made it out.”

Finn’s head dropped.

“But what would have happened if you hadn’t?” His voice broke. “I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

“It’s not important what could’ve happened,” Poe said, and covered Finn’s hand with his own, intertwining their fingers. “Stop thinking about the what-ifs. It’s over.”

Finn looked up again.

“But it’s never really over, is it?” he asked, voice hoarse. “You’ll fly out there again, tomorrow, or next week, or next month, but you’ll keep fighting because that’s what you do. I can’t stop you from it. I don’t even want to, because you’re doing the right thing. I’m trying not to be selfish, but it’s hard.”

“What do you mean?” Poe asked. It was too soon to hope, but it was still stubbornly growing, a single flower on a desert planet.

Finn swallowed. “You died. In my dream, you died.”

Poe’s eyes widened. This was not what he’d expected.

“It’s why I try not to sleep. Recently I haven’t been dreaming about being a stormtrooper anymore, instead I see you die. You’re shot down in your X-Wing, or taken by the First Order, or Kylo Ren –”

A single tear slid down his cheek, and Finn turned his face away from Poe in an attempt to hide it, but Poe saw it. His gaze softened, his hand cradled Finn’s cheek and he caught the tear with the pad of his thumb.

“I’ll try to be more careful from now on,” Poe said, and smiled crookedly.

“No, you won’t,” Finn said weakly. “Nothing is more important to you than the Resistance. Not even your own life.”

Poe was about to object, but the thing was, Finn wasn’t wrong. The Resistance mattered more than his own life, because he was just one person, tiny, insignificant in the grand scheme of the galaxy. The Resistance had the potential to actually change something, for the better. The idea of the Resistance would persist well beyond any of them. There would always be someone, willing to stand up for what was right.

“You don’t have to give me the whole The Resistance is important speech,” Finn said, “I’ve heard it often enough by now. Nobody will ever be able to compete against it.”

Poe felt Finn’s grip loosening, about to drop Poe’s hand. Poe held on even tighter. He took a deep breath and gathered all his courage.

“That’s not true.”

Finn sighed. “You don’t have to lie, I know you –”

“You matter to me, Finn,” Poe said, and looked at him. “And I can’t answer the question if you or the Resistance are more important, but you matter to me. I love you. And I want to have you, in any way you’d let me. Because I’m not just fighting for the Resistance, for all these anonymous people across the galaxy, but also for the people who are the Resistance. Every TIE I shoot down is one who can’t drop a bomb onto the Resistance base. It’s the only thing I can do to keep you a little safer.”

Instead of a reply, Finn closed the space between them and kissed him.

Poe’s brain short-circuited.

Before he had a chance to react in any way, Finn pulled back.

“Sorry,” Finn said, “I shouldn’t have done that, I’m –”

Poe interrupted him with a kiss, sliding his hand from Finn’s cheek to the back of his neck, pulling him in closer, his eyes falling shut. Finn tasted like salt and caf and home.

Finn kissed him back and fireworks exploded behind his eyelids and the music from the end of his mom’s favourite holomovies played.

At some point, they had to come up for air. Poe kept his eyes closed, leaning their foreheads together, a soft smile spreading across his lips.

“You’re the most important person in my life,” Finn whispered, “and I can’t lose you. I worry about you every time you’re on a mission, and I’ve tried to worry less, to spend less time with you, to stop being so attached to you, but it just keeps getting worse, I’m falling in love with you more every day, regardless of how far we’re apart. When you’re with me, I can’t think about anything else, and when you’re not, I see you in my mind, your crooked smile and sparkling eyes and I wish you were mine, but then again, what would happen if you didn’t come back?”

Poe opened his eyes and looked at Finn.

“I will always come back to you, love. I promise.”

Finn smiled weakly, and Poe kissed him. He’d never get tired of the feeling, as if electricity were shooting through his veins instead of blood.

They laid down again, their legs tangled together, and Poe held Finn until he fell asleep to the sound of his heartbeat.

One day, when the First Order had been defeated and the galaxy was free once again, he might tell Finn about his dream, and they’d live the rest of their days on a remote planet, not worrying about anything but the weather, sharing lazy kisses in the morning and holding each other during bad nights.

But for now, Poe just breathed in Finn’s scent and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead, then allowed himself to drift off to sleep again.