"Okay….okay, okay, okay." Finn mumbled to himself nervously. Every person he passed turned and smiled at him and with each smile he felt his own forced one wavering in the midst of a panic. They were whispering over in that corridor. Could it be about him? What were they saying? Nobody just smiled like that back…there, but then again nobody could see anything other than the white clone mask.
A series of beeping met with the incessant nudge against his leg made Finn bite back a shriek as he felt his skin crawl before looking down at the ground with wide eyes. BB-8's black sensor was staring up at him for a moment before emitting more cheerful sounding beeps as he nudged his leg once again.
"O-okay little buddy. Want me to follow you?" Finn stammered. Maybe Poe needed him for something? For what he wasn't quite sure but any moment with Poe was gladly accepted. Finn felt himself snuggling down into the jacket, his first real jacket and from a friend no less. He'd hardly ever taken it off since Poe had given it to him.
BB-8 let out a happy buzz before turning around sharply and rolling off at a steady speed. He was whistling merrily as he went, hardly seeming to notice or care about the Resistance members idly walking by. Finn found himself actually feeing jealous over a small robot. Swallowing deep, he carefully followed behind the small orange and white ball. Maybe people would leave him alone if they saw who he was following? But still everyone continued to flash him those small smiles as though they were nothing to give away, as common as a simple greeting. But neither of those things were really simple for Finn.
Before he could dwell too long on that lonely train of thought, BB-8 made a sharp turn and was spinning quickly towards the door that led outside.
"Is Poe working on his plane?" Finn asked softly.
BB-8 didn't even stop, he kept on rolling for the door which opened smoothly when Finn got close enough for it to recognize a life form approaching it. The small robot growled softly in indignation that it hadn't counted as a life form but seemed to brush it off as he continued on his journey into the night.
Finn looked back at the people still walking around calmly without a rush or any of the precise determination of the storm troopers and he gulped before dashing out after BB-8, waiting for the door to shut with a soft hiss of moving air.
The cold and gentle breeze slowly calmed him down and brought him back down to the planet, back to his new reality. He slowly turned around and took in the beautiful mountains and thick greenery that seemed to cover almost every surface in an eternal carpet of life and fauna. Everything was gentle and beautiful, unhurried and natural and organic. It was nothing like the world he'd known. No ice, no cold and frigid atmosphere. The outside as cold, harsh, and calculated as the areas inside.
Finn heaved a small sigh, how was he supposed to fit in here? He may not have followed his conditioning but he was still nothing more than a clone. An object made to fit into a perfectly designed system, meant to do one purpose and follow it like a well-made machine. He wasn't a rebel like Poe, he was just a broken tool.
He'd craved something like this warm planet for, even he couldn't remember how long. He'd craved for a friend like Poe, so warm and understanding and just caring about him as an individual instead of a serial number. He'd even gotten a name, a name that was his and his alone. Now that he had it he felt so unsure and uneasy. Finn sighed in misery. He just didn't belong here except for in his dreams where this always just seemed to end up feeling natural, a perfect happy ending but this story hadn't ended quite yet.
BB-8 let out a small series of noises, waiting for Finn to follow him again. Finn heaved out another sigh and turned his large brown eyes to the small robot and gave him a forced smile before slowly wandering after the small ball.
The robot turned his head ever so slightly and let out a small, soft whine of sorrow before speeding off at a faster pace. Finn began to jog slightly to keep up.
"Hey! Slow down little buddy or you're going to lose me-" Finn stopped when he caught sight of who BB-8 had taken him to.
Rey was sitting on the deck, her legs dangling off of the sides with her toes barely touching the tips of a tree beneath them. Her hands were splayed out behind her, holding herself up as the laid her back, her eyes closed in a sort of tranquil serenity.
Finn took in her tanned skin, the curve of her cheeks, her neck, everything about her that made her so powerful and beautiful. He blushed and felt his heart begin to pound. He looked down for BB-8 and had to scan the ground to find that the little robot and rolled around behind him. His eyes went wide in a sort of panic when BB-8 let out that little lighter and flicked on his signal for a thumbs up before wheeling away quickly.
Finn tried to snarl after the robot but made a wrong step which creaked loudly in the quiet night and he flinched, hunching his shoulders up as he tried to curl in on himself. He didn't have to turn around to know that Rey had those intelligent and piercing eyes trained on him.
"Uh, sorry fo-for intruding on you. I-I was just following….." Finn started to stammer, feeling his cheeks heat up.
Rey let out a soft laugh and Finn slowly turned around the catch her smiling faintly up at him. "That's okay. You can sit down if you want." She said and gestured to the spot next to her.
Finn smiled weakly, nervous enough to feel like his legs would give out, before slowly walking over towards her and sinking down to the spot next to her.
"W-what are you doing out here?" Finn asked, uncomfortable with the silence. It was too eerie. He was used to the sound of a hundred soldiers marching by in uniform step, the sound of the garbage disposal screaming as it squashed the next load of trash, orders constantly being filtered in through his helmet. The silence now was almost deafening.
"I couldn't handle the noise." Rey said. Finn turned his curious gaze onto her as she stared out at nothing in particular. "Where I'm from, at night, there's no noise but the wind howling and me breathing. It's eerie hearing others talking all the time."
Finn looked down at his hands. The thought was directly opposite from his but somehow they were the same. This was odd to them, for different reasons, but still odd and uncomfortable.
"I mean, don't get me wrong," Rey continued, unaware of Finn's internal thoughts "I love it here. Being alone all the time with nobody to talk to or care about how you're doing is…really hard." Her voice turned mournful and so heartbroken that Finn couldn't help but reach out slowly to hold her.
He stopped halfway, remembering how badly she'd hated holding his hands (which was odd considering how much Poe loved holding hands with everyone) but she broke through his awkward pause when she leaned in to the hug, pulling his arm all the way around her shoulder in a slow and controlled manner. Finn could feel her stiffen at the touch, even though she'd done it she was still nervous and he strove with every fiber in his being to refrain from moving, even going so far as to hold his breath.
She seemed to finally work through whatever had scared her and slowly, so slowly, her shoulders loosened. Not so much as to be entirely comfortable, but enough for her to continue talking and enough for Finn to feel it okay to star breathing again.
"So it's nice to hear others talking and, and asking how I am but it's also so strange and it just makes me feel…uncomfortable. It's like….it's like." Rey strove to find the words when Finn finished speaking for her.
"Like at any moment they'll realize you don't actually belong." His voice echoed her sorrow.
Rey looked up at his morose face with surprise in her wide eyes. He slowly looked into hers and saw the pain and bitter sorrow from years of being abandoned and alone, yearning for a family, a home. She looked into his and saw the desperation and feeling of being utterly lost. The moment was untouched save for the gentle breeze teasing the loose strands of Rey's hair but nothing else dared move and the two were lost in a moment of shared understanding.
"You too?" Rey said softly.
"I don't miss my old life but this one…it seems just too good to be true, too good to last." Finn muttered sadly.
Rey slowly reached her hand up to cup his face and bring it closer to hers. Finn's eyes widened in alarm and he felt every muscle in his body snap to attention as he panicked at the feel of her calloused hands on his skin. Were her eyes always so intensely beautiful? Why was he just now noticing the way her smile curled up like that?
"Finn, don't leave me again." She said.
"Wha- oh, yeah," he flushed at the memory of his cowardly act "I-I promise I won't do that."
"Good. Because, I don't know why but-" Rey fidgeted slightly and her brows creased in concentration and confusion, the grip on his face became a little more possessive and he had to fight back the small whimper in his throat.
"But when I'm with you," Rey continued, gazing with an intense power into his, forcing him to lose all track of anything but her "I-I feel like I belong. It's the strangest thing but your voice calms me down, centers me….maybe we don't belong anywhere but somehow we belong together?" Rey sounded so unsure.
Finn fought back the hysteria in his mind. How did she know? Now that he thought back on it, Rey had grounded him from the moment they'd met. Everything had seemed like a surreal dream from when he'd rescued Poe until Rey had hit him with her stick and brought him back to reality. He'd been fine being with her, even going so far as to trust her with his life from the moment they'd hopped onto that Millenium Falcon. No, he'd trusted her from the moment she'd grabbed his hand and pulled him to safety.
Without her he'd felt like his world had been ripped out on his feet. Running away had no purpose, no safety if Rey wasn't there to hold onto his hand. Her smiles didn't make him uneasy like others in the Resistance, they made him feel warm and like he'd achieved something. He could tell her he'd been in charge of garbage, a mere clone, a tool possessed by the dark side and she'd understand. She wouldn't pity him or think him worthless.
Rey knew what it felt like to be what the others of the galaxy considered worthless, she'd been a Scavenger. She understood being nothing more than a tool, a nobody with no name and no future. She'd never been on the wrong side but she'd never helped the right one either. Maybe he really could belong. He didn't belong here, he belonged wherever Rey was.
"Don' leave me either." He pleaded softly.
He moved to place his hand over hers and felt something in him melt when she moved her hand to hold onto his better, never letting go of his face. He brought his other hand to her shoulder and pulled her in closer.
"Please?" he sounded so desperate.
Rey smiled that rare and true smile of hers that made Finn feel like he would chase her across the Galaxy to find her.
"Deal." She said.
She slowly pushed his head down so their foreheads were leaning against each other. He took in the scent of oil and dust from her skin and closed his eyes, completely content for the first time in a long, long time.
Rey smiled wider and slowly closed her eyes too as she enjoyed the feeling of actually being held. She hated to be touched but this was Finn and he only ever made her feel safe, loved, home.
No, neither one of them really belonged where they'd come from and they didn't quite fit in here but together, together was where they belonged. Somehow, it just happened to work out that way and as long as they had each other, they'd find their home.