"Commander!" The reprimand sliced through the murmur of the tarmac, silencing all personnel and causing the offending pilot to miss a rung as he dismounted his x-wing.
Poe Dameron regained his footing, and stood at attention alongside his starfighter. General Organa marched the length of the landing area towards him – the closer she got, the smaller he felt. Though she barely topped 1.5 meters, Poe felt her presence loom over him. She did not stop her approach until she was inches from his face.
Her eyes narrowed and she growled, "What do you think you're doing, buzzing the landing pad like a neebray in heat? Your shockwave knocked over two weeks worth of supply shipments, and you scared the sithspit out of every member of my crew." She waved an arm behind her to indicate the gawking crowd. "What precisely are you trying to accomplish?"
Poe opened his mouth to reply, but General Organa held up a hand, silencing him, and continued.
"If you're going to answer that, it means you had some idiotic reason to do what you did," she jammed an accusing finger into his chestpiece, "so I'm going to give you two very good reasons not to do it again."
Poe nodded, chewing the inside of his cheek so as not to show his nerves.
"One, I'm giving you a direct order not to. No more low flybys over my landing bay. Or anyone's landing bay for that matter, unless it's been decided ahead of time for tactical reasons. Is that clear?"
Poe nodded again, sternly accepting the ruling of his commanding officer.
General Organa put her hands on her hips and stood proudly. "Good. That's as much as I'd give anyone else, but I'm making a special exception this time, because you need to hear this. Two,"
The General noticed the lack of noise around them, and turned to address the gawking crowd on the tarmac. She raised her voice. "Continue your work. That's an order."
As the landing area staff and crew returned to their duties, the General Organa turned back to Poe. "Listen, Poe, fancy flying never got anyone a date."
A few members of Poe's pit crew, still within earshot, exchanged dubious glances.
The pilot finally spoke, "It won't happen again, General."
She smiled. "You know, I'll have to ground you from training missions temporarily, as a punishment." Her eyes twinkled. "How about three days with the sanitation crew, does that sound fair to you, Commander?"
Poe beamed. "If you insist, ma'am."
After regaining consciousness a week ago, Finn had since dedicated all his effort to helping the Resistance. He understood that freedom from the First Order's galactic tyranny would not come easy, and felt that he owed them for saving his moof on more than one occasion. Usually with Poe's help.
Finn knew how to do two things: fire a blaster and clean the hell out of a military base. Since his first skill was not much use to the Resistance without sufficient pilot's training, he defaulted to the latter.
Cleaning came easy to Finn. A good, solid reset of a room made him feel better about putting his own thoughts in place, and a firm scrub gave plenty of time to think. The brush droids and supply crates were Finn's only company. The head of his department, Lieutenant Sull, had found that Finn worked best and most efficiently when left alone. Finn didn't mind the solitude – the events of the past few weeks were a lot to process. Fortunately, that day's cleaning had produced a few concrete thoughts for Finn to hold onto while the rest sorted itself out.
He missed Rey. The First Order was a blight on the galaxy. Something was going on with Poe.
"Thank you," Finn mumbled to the nearest brush droid, who had just handed him a new sponge. His peers swore the droids had no personality program, but Finn was in the habit of being polite to anything that moved on its own. And if anyone noticed the full measure of the department's droid population clustered around Finn's assigned station every morning, no one said anything.
Rey's mission to find Luke stumped Finn. He'd heard secondhand of her pyrrhic victory. Even some rumors that she had force-called Luke's old lightsaber to her after Finn had been struck down by Kylo Ren's unstable blade.
Finn shook his head, banishing his fuzzy memories of the battle on Starkiller Base. He was still confused about the General's decision to send Rey and Chewbacca alone. He was upset that he hadn't been included—he admitted that—but wouldn't the general want to go and retrieve Luke herself? Should they blockade the planet with what remained of their fleet, and demand answers as to why he left his fallen apprentice to ransack half the galaxy? Finn was sure there must be some reason, but all he could do now to help was scrub. And scrub. And scrub.
A brush droid nudged Finn's hand away from the baseboard he'd been cleaning. Finn noticed that the paint was starting to peel on the edges. He smiled at the droid, gave it a gentle pat on the cranial dome, and moved further down to another grimy baseboard. A chore he'd completed a million times on Starkiller Base.
Finn felt sick at the thought of the First Order. Stealing children, brainwashing soldiers, destroying planets, murdering billions? And Finn hadn't batted an eye until a fortnight ago. Until they'd asked him to kill. Until the day he met Poe.
And what was Poe on about lately? He would laugh or smile at the oddest times. While Finn undoubtedly enjoyed Poe's company, he always felt like he was missing out on some inside joke. Whatever Poe's issue was with Finn, it didn't help that they always seemed to be assigned the same break times and designated the same seating area during strategy meetings. Like some higher-up was pushing them together to see how they'd react. Finn remembered two days ago, running into Poe in the hallway. An actual collision, sending a laundry cart full of uniforms, a rack of squeegees, and Finn himself flying.
Poe pulled Finn to his feet, apologizing, but wearing a wide grin. "You ok, buddy?" he asked.
Finn dusted off his uniform. "I'm— buhhh." Poe was straightening the uniform's collar, and his thumb trailed a gentle caress down the side of Finn's neck. Finn lost all train of thought at the contact.
Poe winked. "Yep, me too." He clapped Finn on the shoulder, righted the laundry cart, and continued on down the hallway, leaving Finn standing with his mouth hanging open amid the fallen squeegees. He swore he heard Poe chuckle as he rounded the far corner.
Again, Finn shook his memories away. That man was too damn pretty for his own good. Finn couldn't concentrate with Poe around, and Poe's manic spurts of humor weren't helping.
"These things take time," Finn informed his brush droid. "It takes a while to get to know someone, right?"
The droid handed him a cleaning cloth in response.
"I'm not the joke," Finn assured the droid. "At least, I don't think so. You know what this means, yeah?" he wagged a knowing finger, "Surveillance. Just gotta spend more time with Poe, figure some things out."
"Today's your lucky day, then. And tomorrow. And the day after that."
Finn turned in shock, to see Poe framed in the doorway, still in his orange flight suit. He held a mop, handle-down; it's ropey head waving like a flag on a newly claimed planet.