Jess sends Poe away when he arrives at the hangar for his morning flight check. "I can do it, Poe — you look like death, would you go get some sleep?"
"I appreciate the thought, but I can't just up and take a morning off," Poe says. He runs a hand through his hair and lets out a sigh that puffs his cheeks.
But Jess is shaking her head. And wow, she looks way too awake right now, with her dark eyes glinting and her mouth curving into a smile. "I already checked. The general approved it."
Poe narrows his eyes at her. "How —"
"We've all seen how you are with Finn," Jess says, a dry slant to her words. "I saw you slumping back to your room after spending, what, all night in the medcenter probably?" She raises an eyebrow at Poe, but apparently doesn't need actual confirmation because before he can respond she's barreling onward. "So I commed the general, and I didn't even have to ask once I explained the situation. Take the morning, Dameron. That's an order."
Okay, there's no coming back from that self-satisfied grin on her face. Pava getting to legitimately give him an order? That'll be coming back to bite him in the ass for weeks. But Poe nods and claps Jess on the shoulder. "Thanks, Jess."
Of course, once outside the hangar, he's torn: his quarters to crash, or straight to the general? In a lot of ways Leia is like family, and giving him this morning off — knowing that he would need it, after staying up most of the night with Finn — is just another example of her looking out for him.
But she wasn't looking out for him when she sent him out into her son's clutches completely unaware. A hot coal of anger shifts in his gut, sending waves almost like nausea rolling out through his system.
No. He's tired. Jess is right; he needs to sleep. Confronting the general now, when he's exhausted and with his control fraying around the edges, would do more harm than good. So Poe sighs and retires to his quarters.
Following orders. Which isn't something he's had a problem with since leaving the New Republic Fleet. When you can trust and believe in your commanding officers, orders are simple. Not always easy, but simple: you follow them.
But what if your commander has been keeping secrets from you that could break your heart?
Poe has trouble falling asleep until he resolves to wake early enough to talk to the general before his evening patrol run. He asks BB-8 to wake him at 1300 hours and then he closes his eyes and he's gone.
And he sleeps deeply enough that when the jolt of his bunk finally starts him awake, it takes a moment to orient. BB-8's chittering about how he wanted a wake-up call but sleeps like a tauntaun, and gradually Poe pulls the threads of consciousness together. BB-8 must have knocked up against his bunk to wake him. It's not often that the droid's Binary chatter isn't enough to wake him, but it's also not often that he's asleep in the middle of the day. His system's all out of whack.
"Hey, sorry buddy, thanks for the wake-up call," Poe says, leaning on one elbow to look at the droid.
BB-8 beeps his worries that maybe Poe needs more sleep, rolling back a bit but keeping his photoreceptor trained on Poe.
"I'm fine. I'll sleep tonight, don't worry." He sits up, looks at the crumpled pile where the clothes he'd thrown across the foot of his bed must have slid off onto the floor. He could really use some time in the fresher. Returning his attention to BB-8, he asks, "Could you send a message to General Organa for me? Tell her I'd like to meet with her if she has a little time."
BB-8 whirs confirmation and Poe lays his clothes out flat again (maybe any wrinkles will come out?) and slips into the fresher. It'll give the general time to respond, and hey, at least he won't smell like armpit when he sees her. He's finishing up in the shower when the droid rattles off General Organa's response from the doorway to his room.
Poe mutters a curse under his breath — he didn't expect her to be ready right away — and rushes through drying and dressing so he can make it to the general's office while she has a moment. BB-8 trundles along behind him until he reaches his destination, and then he turns and half-kneels. "Go check on the X Wing, will you buddy?" It's to give the droid something to do, and BB-8 knows it. But he beeps a somewhat reluctant confirmation and rolls off toward the airfield.
Straightening, Poe knocks on Leia's door. "It's Poe," he says, which is a good indication of how personal this is. Right now he's not Commander Dameron or even Poe Dameron, he's just Poe, who has known Leia and her family since he was small.
The door slides open and Leia beckons Poe into her office. There's the soft wssh of the door closing, and for a moment he just watches her, one hand gripping his opposite wrist behind him. "Poe, what is it?" Leia asks; that's genuine concern in her eyes.
There's a new weight to her. Poe thought he had it measured up in the weeks following Starkiller Base — she'd just lost her husband, after all — but now he reassesses. His heart is a black hole, its gravity ripping at everything else inside him, heavy and dark. Another piece clicks into place: Kylo Ren killed her husband, which means Ben did it. Her son killed her husband. His own father.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Poe asks, his voice soft.
It only takes a moment, and then her expression shifts: her brow draws tight, her eyes close a moment too long, her frown wavers between anger and sorrow. "About Ben," she says. Not a question.
"He was — he was my friend, and I thought he died." Poe's hands clench, one into a fist, the other tightening around his wrist behind his back. "He ripped through my head, memories of him and I thought it was his killer going through — through those thoughts. But it was him. And you didn't tell me."
Leia meets his eyes, and hers are sad but firm, solid, like the general herself. She is made of steel. She is the strongest person Poe knows. "I've questioned whether to tell you at every step along the way, Poe," she admits. There's a pause, and he feels like she's studying him, measuring him. "Would it have helped? The Ben you knew is gone. I couldn't tell just anyone about him. And Poe, I know I can trust you, it has nothing to do with that. But if you didn't have to know, I thought, wouldn't it be easier not to?"
No, Poe wants to say, then… yes, maybe. But Leia's not done.
"It hurts to know that it's my Ben under that mask, that he's done those things. To wonder… what he'll do next. To have to plan for it. I have to bear that burden, but you didn't need to." There's something almost pleading hidden under the solidity of her expression. "Poe, you're a pilot. The chances of you even running into Kylo Ren were extraordinarily small."
"But I did," Poe says, his voice hot.
Leia concedes a nod.
Some of the heat retreats from his tone. It leaves traces of ache in his chest. "You should have told me. After, at least."
She stands now, stepping around her desk to approach Poe and put a hand around one of his arms. Her grip is strong, firm. "You're right, and I'm sorry."
He still feels the ghost of Kylo — of Ben — sifting through his memories. Flashes of that masked figure that exuded alternating hot and cold, the cruel timbre of his voice through the mask's modulator, juxtapose against Ben under the tree in Poe's yard or running his hands along Mom's A Wing or in their kitchen sharing a meal with them. What does Ben look like now, under all of… that?
Maybe he understands why Leia would keep this from him. He tries to measure the hurt and disbelief and quantify what it must feel like for her, for Ben's mother, but there's no way to compare it. Poe has always empathized powerfully with others. It's almost laughable that he came here expecting his anger to boil over. It's easy to let your hurt drive your thoughts when you're pounding against the walls of your own head, but faced with a mother's grief…
Poe forces himself to relax out of his stiff stance, shifting one arm from behind himself to grip Leia's arm. "What happened?" he asks.
She takes a couple steps back, drawing him along so that they can each lean a hip against her desk. "It was Snoke," she says, anger flashing through her eyes. "He got into Ben's head when he was just a child. I'm not even sure how young he was when it started. But he whispered dark thoughts into Ben's head, and I didn't — I didn't fully understand what was happening. I didn't know who it was, at the time."
Her eyes drifted down toward her desk as she spoke, but now they snap back to Poe's. "I made a mistake, I think, sending him away to Luke. I thought Luke could help. But I think… Ben felt abandoned. Things got worse for him. Luke was starting to piece together what was happening to him, but it was too late. Snoke somehow… somehow convinced him that he needed to kill all the Jedi."
Poe knew Kylo Ren killed all the young Jedi Luke had brought together to train, but now he's picturing it fresh, and it's Ben striking them down. Guilt stabs deep in Poe's gut, twists and bleeds out ache. "I should have known."
Leia breathes a short, dark puff of laughter. "Known what? You were a child yourself."
"We were friends. And I didn't even talk to him in the last couple years he —" was alive, he wants to say, but he trips over the words. Was Ben? After he left to train with Luke, Poe sent a few holos, but gradually they grew less frequent, and then a couple of times Ben didn't respond and… he didn't push. "I should have been there for him."
Leia fixes him with a firm, maternal stare. "You see, Poe, this is part of why I didn't want to tell you. This isn't guilt for you to carry. If anyone failed Ben, it was me, and it was Han. But you were a child. You were a good friend to Ben, better than anyone else he knew. But he wasn't your responsibility."
You were a good friend to Ben. Not good enough. Poe knows, he knows he should have done more. But he keeps it to himself. He can't do anything about it now. "What comes next?" he asks.
With a sigh, Leia says, "We keep fighting the First Order. We find a way to bring Snoke down."
"What about" — Ben — "Kylo Ren?"
The look she levels on Poe is heavy, settling a weight of dread on his shoulders. "We're not completely sure he escaped Starkiller Base," she admits. "But I suspect he did."
Poe doesn't ask how she would know. It's easy to overlook the fact that she's Force-sensitive, sometimes, but talking about Ben makes it hard to forget. He trusts her judgment. After all, she would feel it if her son died, wouldn't she?
"He killed his father," Leia admits, a tension in her voice that verges on breaking. "I believe there's still Light in him — I want to believe it — but I have to admit that… if it comes down to it, he may have to be taken out."
She doesn't want that. It's completely clear in every aching line of her body. Despite everything, Ben is her son, and she wants him back.
Conflict roils like storm clouds through Poe's chest. He doesn't know what he wants. It's too raw. Kylo Ren in his head, tearing his walls down, shredding through precious memories of the two of them. A cruel voice that shows no sign of remembering Poe.
Quiet, awkward Ben following Poe up into the branches of the tree in his backyard, a rare, relaxed grin spreading across his face.
That barely contained lightsaber arcing through Lor San Tekka's chest, and the cry that rips from Poe's throat in response — the blaster bolt discharging as he runs, but both of them rendered motionless with one gesture. That moment of helpless awe/rage.
Did Ben even remember it was him? Or has he been so twisted and warped that there's no trace left of the Ben that Poe once knew?
Maker, Leia has lived with this helpless anguish for fifteen years. "I'm so sorry," Poe says finally, and he grasps her shoulders as he looks into her eyes.
Her eyes shine a little brighter and she nods. Poe can't help it. He pulls her into a hug. Tries to fathom the strength of a woman who has lost her world, her husband, and her son, but still commands the Resistance. The dual ache of wanting to forgive her son, to bring him home, but needing to be willing to order his death, if necessary.
When he pulls away, Poe taps a fist over his heart. "We'll get this thing done, General. Whatever you need done, I'm with you. Just say the word."
If nothing else, Poe's more certain than ever that the Resistance is where he belongs. There is no one whose orders he would trust more than General Organa. So he forces the fresh ache down, burying it to focus on the things that matter now.
Poe is, by now, an expert at burying grief in work. He did it the first time Ben died. He did it with Muran. He's done it with the pilots they've lost in the war since. This will be no different. As he leaves General Organa, he has just enough time to stop in on Finn before his evening patrol flight.
Life goes on. The fight goes on.