Chapter 7

Ana couldn't help but groan in relief as the Transport's engines began to cycle off having settled it securely on the transport pad of D'Qar Base. That mission had been entirely too exciting.

She'd never been to Jakku before…and now she never wanted to go back.

After their run in with the First Order and narrow escape into hyperspace, she'd spent most of the time at lightspeed reworking the wiring and circuitry of the control feed so that her temporary fix wouldn't result in them being blown to bits as the ship tried to drop back into realspace. Poe had abandoned the cockpit to slip into a restless doze sprawled across a row of passenger seats and Lek had taken over keeping an eye on primary systems from the pilot's seat until Ana could get the hyperdrive motivators to re-sync properly once she got the control unit back online.

After that, Lek had kept an eye on Poe while Ana and N3 ran the ship through the requisite series of short hyperspace jumps that she'd been conditioned to cycle through to keep from being followed. It was a habit Reem and her Uncle had instilled in her ages ago, apparently having picked up the habit from her mother themselves. And given their recent encounter, she was admittedly a little paranoid, causing her to fall back on the habit regardless of the slim likelihood that the First Order ship would be able to determine their most likely course.

Pulling herself from the pilot's seat, Ana made her way into the passenger compartment, only slightly relieved to see Poe awake and standing on his own. He didn't look any better for his short rest, though.

Poe looked so drawn and exhausted he seemed nearly dead on his feet. And Ana hadn't been kidding before when she said he looked awful. There was blood matted in his dark hair from a gash on his left temple, his lip had been split and there was a nasty looking cut on his right cheekbone. Not to mention the bruising blooming beneath the collar of his shirt and on the side of his face. Who knew what other injuries she couldn't see. The fact that he needed a good shave and round in the 'fresher wasn't helping with the disheveled look either.

As she came up to stand beside him, he looked over to her, a faint but pained grin flashing over his face. Beyond them, Lek was hitting the controls for the boarding ramp. Gesturing wordlessly for Poe to disembark, Ana stuck close to his side, not trusting the way he seemed ever so slightly off-balance. Sure enough, her caution proved necessary. Halfway down the shallow ramp Poe began listing to the left. In an instant Ana was at his side, gesturing for Lek to give her a hand as she slipped beneath his arm to steady him. He bit back a groan as Ana's hand braced against his torso, helping to guide him the rest of the way down the ramp.

"I'm fine, Adyé," the Commander grumbled, but there was a flash of weary gratitude in his dark eyes as he let himself lean against her. Ana would have been tempted to roll her eyes at his attempted bravado if she wasn't so worried about him. It looked like he was exhausted more than anything, but given how pale he'd grown and the stiff way he moved, she wasn't quite willing to believe that was the extent of his problem. She was fairly certain he had at least some bruised ribs from Plutt's goons and quite possibly a concussion to boot. And that wasn't even counting what the First Order might have done to him.

Almost as soon as they reached the duracrete landing pad, Lek and Ana were heading for the medical centre. Naturally, Poe caught on quite quickly.

"I need to see General Organa immediately," he insisted, putting as much authority as he could manage into his tone. Ana nodded in agreement.

"Sure," she agreed lightly. "You're also going to the medical centre." Poe tried to pull away, to stop, but he didn't quite manage it, stumbling a little instead. That didn't halt his almost desperately exasperated insistence.

"Adyé, I need to speak to the General."

"Dameron," Ana countered with an equal measure of exasperation, "you look half dead. You're going to the medical centre." He started to interrupt, but Ana easily cut him off, "and did I say you couldn't see the General? Really." She was tempted to roll her eyes, but Poe's mollified expression was drowned out by another wince as they reached the stairs.

"Do you know how much you sound like a politician when you twist words like that," Poe muttered weakly as they started down the stairs that led to the heart of the Resistance Base.

"Must run in the family," she said absently, not quite realizing precisely what she said until Poe frowned, trying to level her with a questioning look even as he focused on getting down the stairs with as little help as possible. Ana actually did roll her eyes as he tried to pull away from her, a proud set to his features. She didn't care about his battered pride just then.

"Run in the family? You never mention your family." Ana nearly bit her tongue, suddenly irritated with herself when he called her on what she said. She was just letting all sorts of unguarded things that she normally wouldn't dream of sharing slip out today. She must be more worried that she thought… She grit her teeth as he stumbled against her before she managed to answer.

"I had a grandmother who was a senator," she muttered when he refused to stop looking at her curiously for an answer, even going so far as to pause halfway down the stairs when she initially refused to elaborate. When he wanted to be, Poe was incredibly stubborn. "And apparently both my grandmothers were elected Royalty on their home planet, and one even served as Queen, if I remember right." Despite being abruptly more forthcoming than she had initially planned, she wasn't about to admit she also had an Aunt who was not only a Princess, but also held the distinction of once being the youngest Senator ever to hold a seat in the Senate, Imperial or Republic.

And that wasn't even mentioning the two famous Jedi sides of her pedigree.

Poe's actually snickered, causing Ana to glare at him.

"Royalty, really? Do I need to call you Lady Adyé now?" If he hadn't looked on the verge of toppling over or passing out, she'd have been tempted to smack him.

"Switch off, Dameron," she bit back. On Poe's other side Lek barked out a laugh at Ana's acerbic warning, causing the aching Commander to wince at the volume.

"I'd listen to her, Poe. She's still mad that you not only lost that X-wing, but about your TIE escapades as well," the Lieutenant cautioned good-naturedly, still chuckling at the stormy look on Ana's face.

"Escapades? Really? We were getting shot at!" Poe exclaimed as he jerked to a halt, shooting Lek a disparaging glare of his own and nearly unbalancing Ana as she tried to steady him. Ana swore, her fingers fisting in Poe's shirt as she not only tried to steady him but herself.

Thankfully, they had reached the bottom of the stairs, and Poe was able to manage mostly on his own again, keeping a tentative but tight hold on Ana's shoulder instead of actively leaning on her for balance. It wasn't much farther to the medical bay from there.

"You know, I just can't figure out why you've been using so many Tatooine expressions today," Poe abruptly said, more than a little curiosity in his overly conversational tone. "As far as I knew, you've never been there." Ana's jaw clenched. Of all the days for him to be curious and stubborn about things she didn't want to talk about…

"You're not still caught up on that, are you?" He shrugged.

"I'm just curious, Adyé. You used another one on the stairs just now, a Huttese one, I think, though I might be wrong about that." Ana nearly bit her tongue when she realized he was right. Why was she falling back on curses she'd picked up when she was a kid now of all times? She'd deliberately avoided using some of those phrases for years because of the questions they raised. Tatooine was not a common place to be from, so phrases from there always stuck out in conversation. And why did he want to have this conversation now…why did he want to have it at all? Poe rarely pressed her about her past. Maybe he'd hit his head harder than she'd thought… "I don't speak it," he continued, "but I can recognize a few curses; that one was something about Jabba's flabby right—"

"I have been there, you know," she said defensively, cutting him off, "it wasn't a long visit, but I have been to Tatooine." He raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"You don't pick up ingrained expressions like that in an hour or two. And you're definitely not from there."

She gave him a scathing look. "How do you know?"

"You've told me you're originally from Naboo and you're deflecting," he countered. She sighed, her mind racing. Half-truth? Lie? Poe was a terrible liar himself, but he was pretty good at picking up on them.

"I knew someone from Tatooine a long time ago," she finally said. "I guess I picked up more of his expressions than I thought." Poe straightened a bit, an odd expression flitting across his handsome features.

"He? Who's he?" Ana couldn't help but laugh at his tone; he was trying to sound so casual, but that made him sound even more curious. "Anyone I know?"

"Jealous, Dameron," she asked, allowing herself to smirk at him as she teased. Now it was Poe making a disgruntled face at her. But he didn't get a chance to respond. Almost the instant they passed through the door to the medical centre, Dr. Kalonia appeared to take charge of her new and reluctant patient, having been waiting for them since Ana informed Command that Poe was injured when they'd been on approach to the Base.

Even knowing very well that she was likely on her way already, Ana pointedly sent Lek to retrieve the General for Poe's sake when he'd renewed his insistence that he needed to see General Organa immediately. Ana hadn't been wrong; Lek had barely been gone for two minutes when Leia appeared in the medical centre.

But Leia's presence still didn't stop the battered Commander from resisting Dr. Kalonia and the Med-techs' efforts to get him onto one of the cots to be examined. If anything, it made him more insistent that he was fine. It finally took Ana, the doctor and General Organa together to convince him to submit to an exam at all. Even as Dr. Kalonia began treating his minor concussion and bruised ribs he was making his appeal to Leia.

"General, I have to go back. I left BB-8 behind with the package from San Tekka to keep it away from the First Order. I told him to run, to hide; I have to go back for him. I have to find him." Ana started, fixing Poe with an incredulous look. She didn't miss the wary look Leia gave her, but Ana ignored it, her attention on the Commander.

"Lor San Tekka?" she blurted out before she could stop it, "he's on Jakku?" Poe hesitated, a pained expression flashing over his face at her question. At once a sick feeling was twisting in her chest.

"He was, but he was killed in the First Order raid…" he said quietly. Ana's breath caught. It felt like a lifetime ago when she'd last seen the old explorer. She remembered him visiting her parents when she was a child, and listening to stories about his many adventures or tales from the time before the Empire; his favourites to tell had been stories about the Jedi. Poe didn't seem to notice her reaction, caught up himself at the reminder of the old man's fate. After a moment he seemed to shake himself free of the memory, though his expression was still grim as he turned back to the General.

"He gave me the data unit and I gave it to BB-8 when the First Order cut off my escape. I told him to run and hide with it—" Ana's attention was instantly drawn back to Poe's story, part of it sounding very familiar.

"Wait, you put the unit, the very thing you were sent to retrieve, in your astrodroid for safekeeping?" He looked at her, faintly startled as though, in his focus on convincing the General, he'd forgotten she was still listening.

"Well, yeah," he said. She spared him a look of utter disbelief, before glancing over to her Aunt.

"Isn't that what you did, General? With the Death Star plans way back when?" Leia suddenly seemed like she wasn't quite sure whether to chuckle or frown with exasperation. Poe, meanwhile, shrugged casually at Ana's observation, the hint of a sheepish grin on his face.

"I suppose I had to get the idea from somewhere. And it was a pretty good idea…" Ana renewed her incredulous study of him. He missed it, flinching at whatever it was Dr. Kalonia was doing with his ribs. Ana crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow at him when he finally looked back to her.

"You do remember how that plan worked out, right? It brought the Death Star to the Alliance's front door." Poe looked thoughtful for a moment before a perfectly satisfied look appeared on his face, looking first to Ana, then Leia. The General seemed to be fighting back an indulgent look.

"It worked out pretty well, really," he said brightly before involuntarily yelping as Dr. Kalonia took advantage of his distraction to dose him with something, "that better not be a sedative." Dr. Kalonia assured him it was a compound to help treat his concussion, but he didn't look convinced, levelling the doctor with a suspicious look. Ana groaned, fighting the urge to roll her eyes again, drawing Poe's attention away from the doctor.

"And how's it working this time around?" she asked dryly. Leia frowned in Ana's direction, looking like she was about to reprimand Ana for her repeated interruptions. Poe had the audacity to chuckle.

"Don't pay her any mind, General. She's just sulking because I got to fly a TIE fighter," he said with a wide grin. Ana made a face at him. But then she caught her Aunt's admonishing look behind Poe's back. Ana just shrugged. She could have sworn Leia was verging on rolling her eyes. Ana nearly smiled in amusement at the thought. But then Poe abruptly sobered, his attention shifting again so that the General was once again on the receiving end of his demanding look.

"General, I'm not going to stop asking; give me clearance to go back to Jakku," he said, sounding almost petulant. Ana could tell he knew he was losing the argument. Leia gave him a firm look, crossing her arms before shaking her head. Ana knew that look. There would be no budging her Aunt on this.

"No, Commander. You need to recover."

"But General, I'm fine. What I need to do is complete my mission," he insisted. Leia gave him a knowing yet sympathetic look. Ana couldn't help but agree with her Aunt. Admittedly, Poe was already looking much better—his complexion far healthier and his eyes no longer dulled as they had been when she and Lek helped him off the Transport—but he still looked like it would do him good to sleep for at least week.

"I know, Poe," the General said gently, "But the situation has become more complicated; the First Order's after your droid now too." Poe paled, trying to get up only to have Dr. Kalonia shove him unceremoniously back down. Ana frowned, suddenly very curious again as to what this mission was about.

"General Organa, please. I need to do something," Poe insisted with one last appealing plea. As Leia opened her mouth to counter his plea, Dr. Kalonia caught Leia's eye, making a discreet gesture asking for a moment. Leia nodded in acknowledgement, before fixing Poe with a stern look.

"We have people looking into finding the droid," Leia said firmly, "but right now you need to let Dr. Kalonia do her job. You're not going to be of any help to anyone if you run yourself into the ground." With that she turned away, following the doctor across the room toward the diagnostic station. Ana and Poe both watched her retreat, each deep in thought before Ana turned back to the Commander, her arms crossing over her chest again as she fixed him with a stern look of her own. But before she could even open her mouth to speak he was fixing her with an entreating look.

"You've gotta help me out here, Adyé. You've got the General's ear; the longer I sit here—" Ana nearly groaned in exasperation, her hand rising to press against her forehead. Not this again.

"Poe, really—"

"I know, I know. You say you don't but somehow you do. I mean, if you weren't such a bloody good pilot, most of us would be wondering how much she'd helped getting you to Red Leader so quickly. She listens to you, Adyé." Ana's jaw clenched.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Dameron," she hissed out with clear exasperation, "I'm no closer to the General than you or any of the other squadron commanders." It wasn't exactly a lie; in her role as the General, Leia was very careful to treat Ana as any of her other Commanders and not as her niece.

"And before you were a squad leader," he challenged, his eyes sharp. Ana tensed. But she purposefully rolled her eyes instead. She knew from experience that the more irritated she allowed herself to get, the bigger a deal it became. Though, considering how much she seemed to be letting past her guard today? Her stomach twisted nervously.

"I was the Base's top mechanic, genius, " she countered impatiently, making exactly the same argument she'd made a dozen times before, "and I helped cobble together those damned transports. Not to mention I'm the defacto Captain of the Flame. Of course I'm going to be on speaking terms with the General. Because that's all it is," she said sharply, cutting him off, "speaking terms." Poe leveled her with an unconvinced look; he knew she was holding something back, just like he always did. But then he sighed looking suddenly exhausted again.

"Even if I pretend I believe you, you can't deny that she does listen to you, Ana," he pressed almost desperately. "At least back me up on this." Ana bit back a distressed noise, shaking her head.

"You believe what you like, but the General's right, Poe," she countered wearily, concern once again overtaking her irritation. No, it was more than concern; it was outright worry. "You were in bad shape by the time we made it back here. There's no way you're ready to go out again just yet." In an instant his agitated expression was overtaken by his usual charming smile.

"Aw, c'mon. You weren't worried about me, were you Adyé?" he teased. Ana huffed, fighting the smile tugging at the corner of her lip. She glanced around, checking that no one was looking in their direction; there was a privacy screen blocking most of the bunk and the Med-centre was mostly deserted save for the General conferencing with Dr. Kalonia and a couple of other med-techs.

No one was paying her or Poe any attention.

Darting forward, Ana lightly grabbed his shirt, leaning in to place a quick but emphatic kiss against his smirking lips.

It was certainly one way to shut him up.


A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you all enjoyed!

Don't forget to Review! It's the only compensation I get for this, after all...not to mention I just adore hearing what you all think! :D

Thanks for reading!


On a related note, I invite you all to pop over to my profile and vote in my new poll! An intriguing and pervasive thought has been flitting around my brain (of many, really, but this is a big one...) regarding the Lady Adye Story-verse. Explanation is just below my 'Current News' section and the poll is up at the top. :)

And maybe check out my planned stories while you're there...there's a new Star Wars one that may just be linking up with my Lady Adye story-verse that I'm curious what you all will think about.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Don't be afraid to PM me! I'm usually pretty quick to answer. :D


Guest Reviews:

Heh309: I wish you didn't have your PMs disabled because then I could've thanked you ages ago for your lovely review! :)I'm so glad you're enjoying so far. Things are going to be interesting, that's for sure! :D Thank you so much for reviewing! It really is the best thanks and encouragement an author can get! I hope to hear from you again!