AN: This was an old thing I wrote on tumblr a couple years ago (after The Force Awakens and loooong before The Last Jedi came out) and found again. The prompt was "Finn is a reincarnated Clone Trooper", and I went for it, even if I still have yet to watch either TCW or any TCW adjacent TV series. Enjoy this revised version, which has recently, not long before the posting of this, also been posted to my AO3 account. A story-in-the-making told in seven snippets.

Because I still love Finn.

Tags on AO3: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Reincarnatio, Finn-centric, POV Finn (Star Wars), POV Third Person Limited, Introspection, Character Study, Stormtrooper Culture, Light Angst, Hopeful Ending, Canonical Character Death, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Movie: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Reincarnated Finn (Star Wars), 5+ Headcanons, Ficlet, Gen Work, Canon-Typical Violence

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GIVE A MAN A FIRE

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1. FN-2187 calls all his fellow troopers "Brother."

He doesn't mean to. He shouldn't because it's dangerous, but it just slips out of his head and off the tongue sometimes, and he doesn't even notice. He confuses a lot of things. "Born together, raised together, all sent to war together." Republics and First Orders are more or less the same, raising living sentient people as obedient blaster-fodder.

It all looks the same from the bottom.

They might not have the "same bones, same face, for a whole bloody race" thing this time around, but… everybody looks the same with those helmets. There are no bright blues or golden yellows or bloody reds this time around. No markings. Just clean, empty white. Sometimes Finn will go out on patrol and he won't know who's standing next to him for hours, not until they say something.

There are still nicknames, this time around, but… FN-2187 doesn't get one. He doesn't know why, maybe it's because he's too different. Maybe it's because he's always been too different. Out of place, out of time. It's different here, but it's not different enough for him to forget.

It's colder. It's slower. It's infinitely, unbearably lonelier.

FN-2187 can't decide if the First Order's frigid disapproval and choking fist is better or worse than the fond tolerance of a supposedly peaceful magician. At least the First Order doesn't pretend to care.

In either life, though, troopers don't look much different in the eyes. Different shapes and colors of eyes, but the same looks. Unwavering loyalty, deep bitterness, righteous anger, genuine belief, or forced laughter. Guilt and fear, and fear, and fear. It's not the same, FN-2187 knows, but all he can see are the same eyes in different people, and the differences aren't enough.

So, FN-2187 calls his fellow troopers his "Brothers," because that's what they are, even if most of them have been brainwashed into not believing it. (How can they not know? How can they not feel it?) "Sister" doesn't slip off the tongue nearly as much, since it's a little new (not completely new, but far more common now), but it slips out nevertheless, to the same angry disapproval and blank confusion. FN-2187 thinks it's the latter that hurts worse. It all hurts, though.

FN-2187 doesn't give up that easily, though. They're his Brothers (and Sisters), and maybe if he shows them that, they'll know it. (Maybe they'll remember too.) FN-2187 reminds empathetic and kind, and always comes back for the blaster-fodder; he patches wounds and bolsters morale; he teaches and carries them when they can't manage for themselves; he covers others' backs even at cost to himself.

Captain Phasma is furious, because he has the instincts of a war veteran and skills that are quickly catching up, and he's wasting it on making sure every member of his squad comes home alive. There's technically nothing wrong with what he's doing, but the First Order doesn't want him doing the right thing at all. It'll cost them a mission someday.

FN-2187 is terrified, but he's not going to stop just to lift himself up to officer on the bones of his Brothers and Sisters. He can't stop. They're his family, and they need him. He's going to help, because he knows that no one else ever will. (They never have before.)

He's only slipped up in front of Phasma once. He called her "General."

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2. He's been alive now longer than he lived then.

He catches himself in reflections sometimes and can't really believe his own face. Not only because it looks different – different features, darker sort of brown – but because this face has stayed the same for so long.

There are no lines of age, no greying hairs, no signs of a half-life half-over already. He's so… young. And he's been young for so long. It's been years and years and yet he's never seen a real battle. He could've fought countless battles in this time – he did once – but… Force, is this what a whole, human life feels like? Some campaigns seemed to stretch out forever, but not like this.

How much life can they steal? In how many ways can they keep stealing other people's lives? He thinks that if he died now, it'd be decades stolen him, but he knows he can't stand decades more of this.

He doesn't know what to do.

He's… he's so young. And worse, he feels it.

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3. The whole attack on Jakku was a nightmare, but it was probably Kylo Ren's red lightsaber that did FN-2187 in completely.

Everything was bearable, sort of, before then. But when FN-2187 walked into his first real battle, he walked into a hundred others are the same time. All over again.

Dust. Fire. Screams. Blasters.

Every single one is the same. It doesn't matter what colorful planet you choose to fight your war on, whatever special trees or animals it has, whoever lives there. Battlefields are always the same. You can't see shit, something's on fire, people are screaming their lungs out, and everyone pretty much just keeps shooting until everyone is dead. They really, really don't change all that much.

FN-2187 has always known what the First Order was about, but Republics and First Orders hasn't seemed all that different before… before… before watching his Brothers and Sisters silently setting a village on fire and killing everything in their path. Before watching innocent people run and scream and die at cold and efficient hands.

This is what they made us for, FN-2187 thinks in horror, and it's true. This is what they've made him for in two almost-lifetimes. But they cannot make me do this. I can't. I won't. I refuse to and I'll refuse to a hundred times over if I have to.

And then he sees Kylo Ren, all swathed in black and wearing the mask of a self-made monster, bring an old man to his knees, and then slice off the old man's head with a vicious, spitting red lightsaber. FN-2187 knows what that saber means, what that color means, what all that means. He heard of Kylo Ren, the Knights of Ren, and Supreme Leader Snoke before, but… he didn't see that red before.

Maybe he could have stubborned it out, absolutely sick to his stomach, if the saber had been blue. Or green. He could have told himself (lied to himself) to stay for his Brothers and Sisters or something. Probably not. But… the lightsaber was red.

FN-2187 knew which side he was on then, completely, between Kylo Ren's red lightsaber and the aura of a hungry pit, between the roiling smoke of a village on fire for no reason, and the blank slate that had been made of his Brothers and Sisters. He can't pretend this time.

Over fifty years and things don't change nearly as much as they should. He can't fight this war for them. Not again. He thinks he's going to be sick. He needs to get out of here.

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4. Poe Dameron is a life-changing experience.

Poe Dameron is the first person FN-2187 has ever met who seems to get it.

"Let's get out of here," Poe says, with a grin. The two of us, his bright eyes say, together.

They take the ship and they fly, and it's as terrifying as Finn always imagined. But it's so good. It's so good, flying. Fighting back. Having someone at his back again who means it. He missed it so much; it feels like breathing again after decades of drowning and being told that was normal.

"What's your name?" Poe shouts.

"FN-2187!"

"…What?!"

"It's the only name they ever gave me!"

At least in this lifetime. Not like the last time was much better, though.

"Well, I'm not calling you that!" Poe shouts decisively. "FN. I'm gonna call you Finn. That alright?"

Finn, it rings through his body like a blaster shot. Finn.

A name. A name. Not even a nickname, but a name, from someone else. In his first lifetime, his Brothers sometimes named themselves, but more often a name was something you were given by your Brothers. Even if you didn't like it much at first, in the end, you became your name, and your name became you. He didn't dare try and name himself this time around – he couldn't use the same name for a different lifetime – because it felt too lonely to do it himself. And now a name, finally, unexpectedly, when he's been waiting so long and had all but given up hope before this escape.

"Finn," he repeats, and shouts back. "I like it!" Because he does.

It's better than shouting, "Poe Dameron, I'd die for you." Because it's only been fifteen minutes and though the swelling in his chest makes it feel true, that's pretty weird and he doesn't actually want to die.

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5. Finn has no idea how he managed to lie to Rey.

Alright, that's a lie. He knows why he did it.

Because he didn't want to be a trooper anymore. He wasn't a trooper anymore. He wasn't going to be a trooper ever again if he could ever help it. Of course he wouldn't introduce himself as FN-2187. He introduces himself as Finn. Finn. Because that's his name now.

He wishes, as he introduces himself, Poe Dameron didn't have to die for it, but… the oldest part of him isn't really surprised. People die. That's what they do. He's never been in a position where they don't.

And Rey believed him. Rey believed his name was Finn. Rey asked him if he was a part of the Resistance, and looked like he was some sort of hero instead of a deserter. Rey looked at him like he was a person. Oh, Finn wanted to be that person. He wanted to be the sort of person who could make a perfect, perfect stranger look at him like that.

It seemed like the thing to do, at the time, to reach out towards everything he had ever wanted.

In either lifetime.

Even if it was a lie.

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6. Maz Kanata nearly gives Finn a heart attack. Not really, but…

She tells him that she's seen his eyes before.

And Finn forgets, for a moment, that he has a different face now. Why wouldn't she have seen his eyes before? If she's centuries old, of course she's seen his eyes before. Who knows how many thousands of millions of clone troopers were spewed out in the end?

But then she talks on, and he remembers that he doesn't have those eyes anymore.

Except… Maz keeps talking and… maybe she's not talking about the color and the shape. She's talking about the look. It doesn't matter what face he has. She knows. Listening to her talk, Finn feels her words stretch across both lifetimes. Who he was and who he is. He can see himself in her eyes.

She's knows what he's done. She knows. She knows.

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7. The person who convinces Finn that the Resistance is worth fighting for is Han Solo.

Poe was… kind… from what Finn knew of him. Having found someone so bright and brilliant and loud, then losing them so quickly, had left a mark. But it wasn't enough to convince Finn that they could win against the First Order. Death waited that way, in one way or another, and Poe's death only proved that.

Besides, he doesn't really want to go to the Resistance and have to tell them that Poe is dead, lost somewhere on Jakku.

Rey was also bright and brilliant and kind, and she never treated him as anything less than a person just like her, but she wasn't a part of the Resistance. She's worth saving and fighting for, absolutely, but saving one person is a lot easier than trying to fight the entire First Order.

He's reluctant to go to the Resistance even if it might mean saving her.

But Han… Han is old and grouchy and gruff. Han is kind and clever and experienced, and has been alive for longer than both of Finn's lifetimes combined. Han was a Rebellion General and a war hero, and he's come out kicking. Han is stubborn and tricky and he's survived everything that the galaxy has thrown at him. He's the most person-like person that Finn has ever met, and somehow he treats Finn like a person too. Like a kid allowed to make mistakes that Finn's never been allowed to be.

Han Solo convinces Finn to at least try.

So, Finn follows him to the Resistance.

Maybe it won't work. Maybe they won't win. Maybe they'll be scrambling out of there, blaster shots around them and a bounty on their heads, but they'll know that they tried. And that they're still trying. Trying counts. And sometimes, if you're lucky and you've got enough stubborn people beside you, trying works. Maybe not in the way you expected, but whatever happens, it counts. And then you try again.

(Unless you try and bring the red lightsaber out of the dark, Finn will think later. That never works. Finn could have told him that. That sort always refuses the offers that Finn has never once gotten, but would have taken in a heartbeat.)

Finn wishes he could've had a general like Han Solo.

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END

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"Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life."

- Terry Pratchett, Jingo

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AN: In this, I imagine that Finn was no known or particularly special Clone Trooper. (He was always special, though, in the way that everyone is special.) There were millions of Clone Troopers. It's in this lifetime that he's going to make his mark. I did like the "We are the spark that'll light the fire that'll burn the First Order down" line.

(I know Poe isn't dead, but Finn thinks Poe is dead through a lot of TFA. Remember: "Poe Dameron, you're alive?")