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Chapter 4: Homecoming

She needed to wake him up. She needed to tell him they were making planetfall. That they would be back on base in less than an hour and that Command was going to be looking for him.

But standing beside his cot, watching his chest gently rise and fall from underneath the blanket that was loosely tucked under his arm, Mila couldn't bring herself to.

Over and over, her hand had moved to grasp Poe's shoulder. To gently shake him awake. And every time, it had recoiled into a nervous fist.

He needed the sleep. Badly. Especially after the night he'd had.

But it wasn't his desperate need of a recharge that stymied her.

It was his face, Mila finally decided. Beforehand, it had been exhausted, deep brown eyes lit with worry, his brows knitted in aggravated confusion, his jaw tight with apprehension as he tried to piece together what had happened. As he wrestled with concern for the future of his fallen friend.

But now, as he slept, there was peace. Quiet. Rest.

As the light from Hosnian's sun warmed his relaxed features, Mila wasn't sure she wanted to take that from him yet. She inwardly chastised herself for hesitating, forcing her hand forwards again.

Only to arrive at the same place where she started.

Finally, she made herself do it. Her small fingers wrapped around the edge of his shoulder, the fabric from his shirt warm and soft under her skin, and gave him a gentle shake.

"Poe," she said softly. "Commander, wake up."

His brow furrowed, and his eyes flickered open.

"Hey," he greeted with a soft, sleepy smile, his voice deep and tired as he sat up and stretched. "I miss something?"

"We're making planetfall," Mila reported, feeling inexplicably dazed as his eyes met hers. "We'll be back on base in less than an hour."

Nodding, Poe squeezed his eyes shut and raked his hand over his face, almost as if he was wiping the rest of the sleepiness from it. "Thanks for letting me know."

He rolled over and tapped BB-8 lightly on the top of his dome, smiling a little as the droid came to life under his palm. BB-8 beeped a greeting and rolled forwards, only to have the charger cord yank him to a stop. He beeped in dismay.

"Hang on, buddy," Poe laughed, sitting up and throwing his legs over the side of the cot. "I got it. There. Try it again."

BB-8 beeped happily, rolling backwards and watching as his master stood and grabbed his flight boots and pulled a sand-colored flight jacket over his shoulders.

"Where are the others?" he asked, looking around the room with a furrowed brow as he noticed the rest of his squadron had disappeared.

"They went for breakfast," Mila reported, walking across the room towards Kit's bed as she spoke. "Decided to let you sleep. You needed it."

Poe nodded, walking up behind her and looking down at a sleeping Kit. "How is he?"

Mila grinned, glancing over the various scanners and monitors that her patient was plugged into. "When I talked to him last, he said he was hungry enough to eat the whole cruiser. That's always a good sign."

Poe laughed, shaking his head and looking down at the young pilot. "There's the Kit we all know and love," he chuckled. He gripped his friend's shoulder and took a step back. "I'll let you get back to work, Lieu—Mila."

Mila smiled at him and nodded.

An amber light engulfed the entire room as the cruiser sank into Hosnian's atmosphere. Poe squinted a little as his eyes adjusted, looking back to where Mila was working, and his feet suddenly refused to back up another centimeter.

The warm colors from Hosnian's sunrise softened the lieutenant's already soft features even further, the flecks of green in her hazel eyes popping under the light. Quietly she worked on, her fingers gracefully dancing across the controls, her full lips slightly parted and her brow knitted in concentration as she took her patient's vitals. One of her hands – small and soft and gentle – brushed a stray lock from Kit's face as she examined the wound on his temple. The movement was so quiet, so tender, that Kit hardly stirred under her touch. In fact, he seemed to melt under it.

Poe watched for a moment, fascinated by how she could be so efficient and so soothing all at once. The last time he had seen her, she had been covered in soot and dried blood, her face drained of any and all energy as her brown hair lazily sagged out of her ponytail. Now that she had gotten some rest and was no longer seeped in stress, he noticed something he hadn't seen before.

She was a beautiful woman.

Something strange – something warm – stirred within him, and he found it next to impossible to look away. The corner of his lips curled upwards in an indulgent half-smile as he shamelessly took her in. Part of him chastised himself for it; the rest of him could care less.

Suddenly his comm beeped, and he was snatched from his stupor. He dug the device from one of his pockets and answered.

"Dameron, here."

"Commander Dameron," a voice came from the other side. "This is Major Deso. Command requests you and your squadron to report to headquarters as soon as you arrive. They have some questions for you."

Poe nodded. "Yes, sir. We'll be there."

"It's good to have you back, Commander. We will see you then."

Poe smiled, and for reasons she couldn't explain, Mila felt her heart flutter at the sight of it.

"Alright. Dameron out."

He returned the comlink to his pocket.

"Reconnaissance of some kind?"

Poe looked up, finding Mila's eyes and involuntarily searching them for a second.

"Not sure," he answered with a little bit of a shrug. "But if I'm going to Republic Command—" his dark eyes flicked upwards to his nappy hair as he stepped back "—then I've got some work to do."

Mila laughed softly. "Then you'd better get on it. We're not far out at all."

Poe shot her another crooked grin – one that effectively robbed the breath from her lungs – and picked up his duffel. BB-8 beeped at him.

"I'd rather you stand watch here, buddy," Poe said. "When they come back, I need you to tell them what we're doing. And make sure they're all alright."

The droid whistled and cooed again, his little body rocking in rhythm to his binary-speak.

"Yeah." He looked over at Mila as she worked, a soft smile pulling at the corners of his lips. "Her, too. She's earned it."

Once again drifting into that gentle trance as Mila's silhouette glided to the other side of Kit's bed, Poe disappeared behind the refresher door. He flicked on the lights and abruptly froze. His brow furrowed, and found himself suddenly short of breath.

What the hell has gotten into me?

With enough force to tear the hull off a freighter, his rational mind ripped him out of his stupor, shaking him back to reality as a flotilla of questions suddenly barraged him. He clenched his eyes shut and shook his head, gaping a little bit as he hastily fought for the answers.

I'm just glad to be back, that's all, he convinced himself. After all the hell we've been through the past few days or so, it's just good to see something familiar. He smiled with relief, confident in his answer. Yeah. That's it.

But even though everything within him tried to deny it, he couldn't ignore that his heart was shyly beginning sing her name.


Republic City, Hosnian Prime's capitol, strongly resembled the cityscape of Coruscant, but it was cleaner. Prettier. More graceful. Thousand-story buildings rose up from the bottom of the large window by Kit's bed, the distant, grass-banked river occasionally peaking out between the spaces between them. Mila couldn't help but smile as she took it all in.

After the nightmare that the attack on Dantooine had been, it was good to finally be home. Kit had elected to use a stronger turn of phrase when he described the feeling, but they both agreed.

Voices and footsteps traveled through the room to her ears, and she turned around, smiling as the rest of Rapier Squadron passed through the door. Kit's face lit up.

"Karé!" he called, absolutely beaming.

Karé's jaw fell slack, and her face flooded with relief.

"Kit!" she just about shrieked. She ran towards her friend's bedside, her flight boots pulling her to a squeaky halt. There were tears in her eyes. "You're okay!"

Kit laughed, reaching up and hugging her tightly. There were hugs and handshakes and laughter all around, and everyone excitedly jabbered on about how happy they were to see him in one piece. Mila stood back, watching as their infectious joy filled the room with a huge grin on her face.

Moments like this, she told herself, were why she spent her life doing what she did.

The refresher door slid open, and Poe stepped out, a broad grin encompassing his face when he saw the rest of Rapier standing in front of him. He took a step forward, but elected to lean up against the wall with his arms folded across his chest, watching them carry on for a while. Mila glanced at him, and he smiled at her and winked.

BB-8 suddenly squealed, rolling over towards the bed and nearly knocking Iolo over. Everyone laughed.

"Hey, buddy!" Kit smiled, reaching down and touching the droid's dome. "I'm holding up okay. What about you?"

BB-8 chirped, his little body pitching with unbridled excitement as he talked on.

"Well, that's good," Kit grinned. "Think Poe'd have a heart attack if you weren't!"

The droid rolled over to where Mila was standing and nudged her leg, beeping and chirping and bobbing back and forth. Six pairs of eyes landed on her, and she met them with a modest smile. Karé stood from where she had been kneeling and walked over to her, grinning and giving her a hug.

"Thank you," she said, nodding back tears. By the way her voice shook, Mila knew her words weren't hollow. "I don't think I can say that enough. None of us can."

Mila grinned and nodded. "Any time."

The two women came back to Kit's bedside. Karé sat down next to him and grinned down at Iolo, who happily sat in the floor in front of her.

"Does Poe know he's awake?" Iolo asked, raising his oddly colored eyes to Mila.

Mila opened her mouth to talk, but Kit excitedly cut her off.

"Saw him last night, Iolo, right after I woke up. The lieutenant and I'd been looking at the stars, and he came over. We flew right past Yavin. Got to talk to Mila some, too. Found out the she's from Hosnian!"

"Oh, you are?" Iolo and Karé said at roughly the same time.

Mila smiled and nodded.

Kit grinned mischievously. "And the Aleena Tavik incident may or may not have almost gotten out. Almost."

Karé snorted and doubled over with laughter, Kit patting her back and snickering. From where he was standing, Poe sighed and rolled his eyes.

"He better be glad we weren't awake, huh Iolo?" Karé giggled, holding her sides.

Iolo smothered a laugh with a pale, long-fingered hand, nodding as he squeezed his eyes shut. The whole squadron was cracking up. Mila shook her head, smiling.

"That's not going away any time soon, is it?" Poe chuckled from where he was standing.

"Look who crawled out of the mynock hole!" Karé exclaimed, her face lighting up even more that it already had as her commanding officer made his way over towards them.

The rest of the squadron enthusiastically greeted him. He laughed softly.

"You holding up okay, Commander?" Kit asked.

Poe nodded. "Never mind me," he smiled. "How about you?"

Kit grinned. "Rapier Five, still standing by."

Poe laughed, shaking his head. A few of the other Rapiers softly cheered. Karé affectionately rubbed his shoulder.

"We'll be back on base in another fifteen minutes or so," Mila said, resting her hand on her patient's slim shoulder. "We'll get you to the med center and get an eval done and go from there." She smiled. "But I think you're gonna be just fine, Kit. You've put up a hard fight."

"That you have," Karé heartily agreed.

Kit grinned. "Having a good doctor doesn't hurt, either."

"Yeah, but had you given up in that hallway, I wouldn't have been much help, now would I?"

"Nah. Not really." He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back, a rascally smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "But you've got a nice face, so you made it pretty easy."

Everyone laughed.

The squadron talked and carried on, cracking jokes and rebounding from them with the tightness of a family. Mila found herself grinning ear-to-ear, content to see them as happy as they were after everything that had happened. She felt Poe's warm hand slide up her back and rest on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze, and she couldn't help but smile at him. His deep eyes met her gaze, and her ability to breathe momentarily vanished.

That reaction, she found, was becoming more frequent, but she wasn't sure why.

At least, that's what she tried to tell herself.

A soft alarm buzzed in their ears, and everyone fell silent. A few of the Rapiers started packing up. The floor vibrated as the cruiser's landing gear was deployed, and the soft roar of the engines soon died out. Rubbing Mila's shoulder and stepping back, Poe went back to his corner, quickly folding up his cot and carrying on a little conversation with his astromech droid.

Mila moved to the head of Kit's bed. "You ready to get out of here?" she asked, smiling.

"Hell yes," he sighed, grinning.

Mila laughed. "Let's go, then," she said, flipping a few of the controls in front of her. The bed floated across the floor, Kit pumping a fist into the air as he passed through the threshold and into the hallway. Rapier filed in around him.

They made their way through the cruiser, finally coming up on the gangplank. Warm sunlight poured onto the flight line below them, peaking through the clouds that hung in the sky. Mila smiled as her feet stepped off the durasteel and onto the permacrete, Hosnian's cool morning breeze streaming up her nose.

Poe had fallen into step next to her, BB-8 rolling along beside him. Every inch of his countenance fairly screamed with relief.

After almost two days, the worst of it was finally, finally over.

"Welcome home, Lieutenant," he said, grinning down at Kit. He gently rubbed Mila's back. "Both of you."