May 1943 - Pacific Ocean
The line of the horizon remained flat and unbroken as far as the naked eye could see. Once the bump that was Hawai'i had receded from sight in the foamy wake of the Finalizer, they had seen nothing for days.
At first they marveled at it. Their world was expanding beyond their wildest dreams. Away, away, away they chugged from the familiar, from the flat green farms they'd grown up on, the crowded cities and tenement houses and makeshift structures on the back of a relative's land.
They stood shoulder to shoulder along the railing of the deck, pointing at nothing and claiming they saw their destination, eager to be the first one at something. The thrum of the ship's engines was a repetitive chorus, at times soothing and other times grating, a constant frequency that reminded them of the unknown they were headed towards.
It reminded Ben of visiting the great dunes as a little boy, how eagerly he struggled up to the top, annoyed at the slow pace his parents and uncle maintained going up the shifting sand. Only when he reached it did he realize there were endless dunes. The lake shimmered in the distance like a mirage of an oasis, tantalizing him with every new peak, but getting further and further out of reach as his little legs had tired to the point his father was forced to carry him. By the time they'd reached the shoreline to spread out their blanket, he'd been so exhausted he'd laid down and cried fat baby tears. His father had tried his best to hide his look of disgust, but he could tell he was a disappointment. He recalled his mother gathering him into her lap while his father and Uncle Luke had strolled down the shoreline together, humming a tune as she read to herself.
She was always reading. Her books were not meant for children, but she read them to him anyway.
He wondered what she was doing now. It had been several months since they had spoken. After their final argument, he had retreated to his attic workspace and moved his piles of paper in circles for weeks before boarding the train to Chicago, and he hadn't called before they shipped out.
He had nearly broken and done so, just once. It was the middle of the night and he couldn't sleep, and he had crept to the phone in the apartment where they were staying. He had gone so far as to lift the receiver and hang up when the operator had politely asked for the city. He didn't want to make an expensive call on a stranger's line. It was already generous enough to be allowed to stay there, alone, to enjoy what little time they had together before he left.
He had promised to write her, but he didn't have any practice with this type of writing. Ben poised with his pen over his notebook before scrawling, My love.
He paused and his brow creased, rereading the greeting several times.
No, no, he decided- too familiar. They were married, to be sure, but that did not warrant an affectionate, nameless greeting. He struck the line with a single, definitive stroke.
They had only known each other a couple weeks, really. He pictured her again, gamely brushing the tears from her cheeks at the dock when she thought he wasn't peeking over his shoulder back at her. She had been very quiet on the bus ride to Fort Mason, and not showed much emotion until it was nearly time for them to part ways. It had made him feel uneasy, not sure she'd miss him. He wasn't even sure if he wanted her to.
He placed the point of the pen to the paper and tried again.
Dear Rey.
He huffed at himself. Now he'd gone from one extreme to the other. She wasn't a first-year student who needed gentle, firm correction on the misguided content of their essay. She was his wife. They had gone to City Hall, made it official. He had insisted she keep the photo her friend Jessika took of them as a reminder of him. He hated how he looked in pictures, anyway - always too stern, and even a bit nervous. He didn't think he felt nervous, but it was as if the camera had the power to capture and show him something in himself he couldn't see just looking in the mirror.
He doodled at the margin of the page again, determined to get through the first couple of lines without overthinking it.
My dearest R- We have left Hawai'i three days ago aboard the Finalizer. That territory is a strange, remote paradise.
Hawai'i was like nothing he'd ever seen, nor had most of them. Vegetation from an alien world with great, primordial-looking leaves, flowers in lurid colors with petals with intoxicating scents unlike the hollyhocks and peonies behind his uncle's barn. The warm, humid breeze that blew continually off the ocean had them feeling clammy from the time they woke until the time they laid their heads down on their bunks in the makeshift barracks. Their ship was being readied for the long-range trip to the South Pacific, where they would be stationed to await their assignment. It was a lot of hurrying up, then waiting, in Ben's estimation.
He continued, It would be good to return when this is over with you, and fitting that we leave from the place that launched us into this madness. So far, spirits are high, but who knows what will happen when we finally reach Fiji.
They were headed from one island to another, one station to the next. Admittedly, it wasn't quite what he'd pictured when he'd signed his enlistment papers at the Air Force office. Their commanders seemed to sense this from them and repeated platitudes about their military superiority, that American ideals could not be contained in their borders and that the Axis would soon fold under the pressure of their world-wide campaign.
He had private doubts about their assessment of the situation, but he didn't want her to worry. It was already enough that she worked in the shipyards, wondering if the vessels she riveted together- and the men they carried- would return intact.
The admirals tell us we should be confident, that the Japanese are on the run, but I fear we may be underestimating our unseen enemy.
There. That was accurate, he thought. It acknowledge both sides of the argument. He didn't want to be long-winded, so he concluded the short letter.
I miss you already, and I hope I am not being too bold to hope you miss me in return. Please give my regards to your family and to (y)our friends there in the city.
A trace of a smile crossed his lips as he thought about how he'd met her. She had been resistant at first, but had quickly warmed to him. But the suddenness of his affection for her had taken him off guard. Moreso, his desire to be decent to her had overwhelmed him. What they had done was, in a word, crazy- getting married so soon after meeting, not telling either of their families, all that despite his impending deployment- but conventions be damned, he felt alive with her. For the first time in a long time, his future felt uncertain, and exciting. In a matter of months, it had gone from a straight line, mapped out and planned to the nth degree, to a great question mark. He had left behind everything and everyone he knew.
He signed the draft with a flourish. She made him uncharacteristically demonstrative, even as he worried over being too forward with her.
All my love,
Ben
A clean copy was folded in even creases into a waiting envelope, and he printed her address at the boarding house in neat, block print.
The night air up on deck was only a bit cooler than the barracks below, but the steady breeze off the water helped cool his sweaty skin. He counted the stars beginning to appear in the sky, holding a lungful of smoke until his chest began to burn. He had never smoked so much before as now; his mother hated it, but it was an excuse to get away from the close atmosphere of their bunks.
"Hey man, you got a light?" A voice startled him and he turned on his heel.
The other man was quite a bit shorter than himself, but his smile reached his eyes even with his lips curled around his unlit cigarette.
"Of course," Ben fished the lighter from his pocket and flicked it open.
"Appreciate it."
They stood a short distance apart in silence. Ben had seen this man around the ship enough to know he was a fellow pilot. He was likely as old as Ben, which put him in the older age group aboard the Finalizer, but he had a youthful air about him, an easy fluidity with the other sailors that Ben already realized he lacked. The longer they were en route, the more he felt like a hothouse flower. The order and dignity he had learned to navigate so well at the university had no bearing here. As much as he had felt it stifled him there, he now loathed to admit he felt out of place without it.
"Ben Solo- I don't believe we've met yet." He stuck out his hand towards the stranger.
"Poe. Poe Dameron." They shook hands firmly, and Poe continued. "You're a pilot too. I saw you at the briefings."
Ben nodded. "That's right. I think they're putting me on bombers. How about you?"
Poe shrugged. "Doesn't matter," he took a deep drag on his cigarette and threw his head back, exhaling at the sky. "I can fly anything."
Ben studied his companion for a split second. He was taken aback by this Dameron's confidence.
Then Poe laughed, a sound that seemed to come from his very soul. Ben smiled to realize he was kidding. "I mean, I wanna fly everything. But I'll probably end up flying the big gals, too."
Ben just nodded and braced his foot on the railing of the deck. The water looked black alongside the hull. His cigarette was nearly at its end, but he had no desire to go back below deck to his bunk that was too short for his stupid, long legs.
"You got a family at home?" Poe gestured towards his hand with its wedding band.
"Just a wife," Ben worked his fingers self-consciously, turning the ring. He still wasn't used to wearing it, or answering questions about it. "We just got married before we shipped out from San Francisco."
"Congrats," Poe didn't look at him as he said it. Ben knew he should be polite.
"And you?"
Dameron smiled, looking slightly self-conscious. "I've got someone special back home, yeah."
He knew not to pry when they had just met. He would see this fellow around until he was sick of his face, and then some. But this smallest connection made him bold. He couldn't help himself, and he forged on.
"Where's home for you?" They were from all over.
"I grew up near Los Angeles," Poe offered. "But I've been in San Francisco for awhile now. I had some relatives there that I went to visit, and I just never went home."
Ben nodded. He had never lived anywhere but Indiana. It sounded so boring to him in comparison to California. His father had been an orphan, and his mother and uncle were the only ones left from their family. They had settled there, and stayed there.
"'Bout you?" Poe mirrored him now, leaning heavily on the railing with his boot braced on the bottom rung.
"Indiana," Ben chuckled. Rey had seemed fascinated by it when he'd described it to her as they strolled along the waterfront, but he had the sense that this Dameron would not be impressed.
Poe eyed him cautiously before muttering, "My condolences. You straight off the farm, or…?"
It was a fair assumption. Ben stood up straight and stretched, bending a bit backwards. He shook his head.
"I was working on my doctorate before I left. Studying to become a professor." He always felt the need to clarify. Everyone assumed he was becoming a medical doctor.
Poe gave a low whistle that sounded like a bomb spiraling out of the sky. "You planning to lecture the Japs out of the sky, or what?"
"I'm a decent pilot," Ben was on the defensive now. "My dad and uncle both flew in the Great War, and they taught me."
Poe nodded and flicked a stray bit of tobacco from his lip. The wind carried it away into the darkness. Ben resisted the urge to press his case, and instead stepped back to shove his hands in his pockets.
"I'll see you around, Dameron."
He strolled back to the door, head down, when Poe's voice stopped him.
"I'll see you in the sky, Teach."