ABOARD THE CRYSTELLIUM, 40 YEARS ABE:

The familiar colors of hyperspace filled the viewport and Poe sagged back in his seat, limp with relief. "We made it," he said. A disbelieving grin spread across his face and he turned to look down at the small droid vibrating beside him. "All thanks to you, little buddy. Good work."

BB-8 trilled in pleasure. Poe reached down to pat him and the astromech rolled forward to butt its domed head against his palm like a happy felinx.

Poe looked back up at Stella, sitting in the pilot's seat beside him, and asked, "What's our destination?"

"Tendrando Resorts on Norulac," Stella said, looking every bit as relieved as Poe and almost as tired. "Everyone's going to regroup there so we can compare data and figure out what to do next."

Poe nodded, his pilot's mind already turning from the current victory to the next fight.

In the main ship's compartment behind them, Breha was helping her brother strip the shattered plasteel remnants of his borrowed armor and stretch-out on a row of seats. "Feels like some broken ribs," she observed, "probably a bunch of other fractures...what were you doing, trying to fight an AT-AT hand-to-hand?"

"Very funny," Bail growled. He winced as he dropped his thigh plates onto the floor and eased himself gingerly backwards. He was now down to just the black undersuit and white boots, and should have been a lot more comfortable without those stiff plastoid plates, but he didn't feel it. Now that they had escaped he could relax his grip on the flow of Force energy that he'd been using to offset the damage he'd suffered under Phasma's assault. He couldn't channel that power forever without burning himself out and doing serious damage, but knowing he needed to let it go didn't make it hurt any less when he did. "As I recall, you're the one who spent the last two days learning how a deep-fried gizka feels."

"Ah, but nobody wanted to damage the Empire's 'Jedi prize' so none of my torture left permanent marks," Breha retorted. "You're the one who needs a healing trance now, not me."

Bail wrinkled his nose but didn't argue further. "Fine. Just promise to wake me when we drop back into real-space. I don't want to freak-out mom and dad and Chewie by being unconscious the next time they see me."

"Deal," Breha assured him. She patted his white-booted ankle as he folded his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. His face tightened in concentration then went slack as his breathing slowed and he settled into the trance.

"What's he doing?" Finn asked.

Breha looked up, startled as though she had forgotten the former stormtrooper was there. He was still wearing his armor - less battered than Bail's, but likewise sporting a multitude of fractures as well as one burnt black streak that must have been the result of blaster fire. He sat stiffly on the opposing row of jumpseats in his cracked white shell, his eyes fixed on the prone Bail.

"It's a basic healing-trance," Breha explained. "He seems to have taken a pretty serious beating before you got to him."

Finn's brow was furrowed in confusion. "He seemed okay when we were fighting," he said slowly.

Breha nodded. "He was using the Force to supplement his physical condition. Jedi can do that for a short time, but eventually we have to stop and let the injuries heal the normal way."

"The normal way," Finn repeated in a very dry voice. "With a healing trance."

Breha grinned sheepishly. "Okay, somewhat normally. It speeds-up the natural healing process, that's all."

"Seems handy," said Finn tonelessly.

Breha nodded. She studied the man who had risked everything to come and save her and Poe from the Empire. She wasn't sure what she had expected when Bail had told her that they had an ex-stormtrooper helping them, but whatever that was Finn wasn't it. He looked far too earnest and kind-hearted to match her mental image of a stormtrooper - but then, if he'd been an average stormtrooper, he never would have defected, would he?

Breha smiled at Finn, really seeing him for the first time. She could sense the same brightness of spirit that had initially drawn Bail to trust him, but she also felt the care and faith that her twin had developed for Finn over their journey together to the Malachor. So when she smiled, it was a smile given with all the warmth and affection with which she would have greeted a friend of years.

Finn blinked.

"Thank you for saving us, Finn," Breha said.

"Oh no," Finn protested, flustered. "No, I didn't - I wasn't - it wasn't just me alone!"

Breha's smile only deepened. "No one is ever really alone," she told him sagely. "But I'm glad you're here with us now."

Even within the company of his small cohort of mutineers, Finn had felt alone since leaving the rigid camaraderie of the stormtrooper corps. He wasn't sure how to take Breha's assertion of togetherness...but even bedraggled as she was, her smile was bright enough to light up a galaxy.

He found himself somehow smiling back.

"I'm Breha," she said, extending her hand towards him across the cabin. "I know you already know that, but it felt weird to not say it to you myself."

Finn started again. "Oh, uh, sure," he said. "I'm Finn - " He lifted his hand to meet hers and suddenly seemed to realize that he was still carrying her lightsaber.

He stared at the weapon, wide-eyed. Somehow it had settled into his hand as comfortably and naturally as a blaster, fitting his grip so well he had forgotten it was there.

Now that he remembered, he thrust the weapon at Breha frantically, anxious to get as much distance between himself and the treacherous blade as possible. How could he have forgotten that he was holding something so terrifying?

Finn told himself that it was only because of the chaos of their escape, but on some level he knew he was lying.

He pushed that thought away. He could deal with whatever that meant later - or maybe never.

"Uh - sorry," he told Breha. "I didn't mean to use it. Bail just gave it to me to carry. I was supposed to give it to you when we broke you out, but things didn't go according to plan exactly, and…"

"It's okay," Breha interrupted him, smiling kindly. She rubbed her thumb across the sleek metal hilt like she was caressing something both precious and familiar. "I'm not offended. Besides, you seem to have done pretty well with it."

Finn frowned at her. "You saw that?" he asked.

Breha twitched her shoulders in a shrug. "No, but Bail did." At Finn's blatant staring she explained, "We're twins. Jedi twins. So we've got kind of a bond, you know? Through the Force."

"That's how he found you in the dark," Finn said slowly.

Breha nodded. "We can share stuff through it too. Thoughts, ideas, feelings." She smirked and waggled her lightsaber hilt in the air. "How shocked and impressed one of us is when someone without any Jedi training or Force sensitivity manages to wield one of these in a fight without cutting themselves into tiny pieces."

"Ah," said Finn in a strangled voice. He eyed her lightsaber nervously. "Is that a...common risk…?"

Before Breha could answer, the hatch to the cockpit slid open and Poe stepped in, followed by Stella and BB-8.

"Finn, buddy, you made it!" Poe exclaimed, pulling the bewildered former stormtrooper to his feet and into a back-slapping hug. While Finn was still trying to process the X-Wing pilot's enthusiastic cheer, Poe turned immediately to Breha and continued, "Kid, you okay?" His grin wrinkled into a frown of concern. "How's Bail?"

"I'm fine and he's fine, or will be," Breha answered, smiling ruefully at her commander's familiar exuberance. "Healing trance. I can wake him if we need him."

BB-8 rolled over and tried to angle his small round body so that he could see the slumbering Jedi, finally giving up and extending a sensor probe instead when he proved too short for the task. He beeped softly to himself as he processed the scan results, once again trying and failing to gather empirical proof of the Force that so many organics assured him was real.

Poe nodded understanding and his smile blossomed again. "Nah, let him sleep. We've all earned ourselves a nice long rest after this. And some bacta treatment," he added, rounding on Finn with a fresh frown of concern. "How's your shoulder?"

"Uh, fine," said Finn, absently touching the scorched streak on his armor. The wound beneath still stung, but in the adrenaline of the fight with Phasma and the terror of their escape, he had pushed the pain aside and all but forgotten it was there. He supposed that sort of compartmentalization was the non-Force equivalent of whatever Breha had been talking about. Now that he was thinking about the wound again, it hurt. He winced. "Well, not fine, but operational. If we're heading somewhere with medical facilities, I'd just as soon wait to peel the armor off and let them handle it there than do it myself and maybe make it worse."

Poe nodded. "We have any medical supplies on board?" he asked Stella. "A pain-stim, at least?"

Stella shook her head. "Booster stripped most of the useful supplies from the shuttle before he loaned it to us," she explained with an apologetic glance at Finn.

"I could do some Force Healing," Breha offered. "Like Bail's trance. If you want - ?"

"No," said Finn, the word jumping out of him like a Vandorian pop-dog. "That is, I mean, you're tired too," he hastened to explain, although Breha didn't seem to have taken offense at the frantic rejection. "The armor dissipated most of the blast, it's just scorched muscle probably. It'll be fine until we get to the medics."

"And then we can all get patched-up and have ourselves a breather," Poe announced in the tone of a man warning the universe that it had better sort its priorities out to match his or else.

"We are going to one of the galaxy's highest-rated luxury resorts," Stella pointed out, her smirk fading as she added, "but I'm not sure how much rest any of us will be getting with this Revan out there."

"Then we'd better make good use of the down-time we've got," Poe said, and plopped down on the bench across from Bail. He tugged Finn down beside him and held out his arm to Breha. "Come on, kid. Squadron snuggles time."

Breha snickered as she sat down and bumped her shoulder into Poe's. BB-8 squealed and hurried to join them, rolling up against Poe's booted feet and spinning his domed head until it came to rest against Poe's leg.

"Is that a thing?" Finn asked, leaning back so he could look askance at the two tired and not-so-fearsome Rogue Squadron pilots in their wilted orange dress uniforms. The garish color seemed especially vibrant against the stolen Imperial duster that still hung from Poe's shoulders.

"No," Breha said firmly.

"Yes," insisted Poe.

Breha shook her head at Poe's antics. "You're a terrible commander," she told him.

"I'm the best commander and you wouldn't want to serve with anyone else." He looked up and raised his eyebrows expectantly. "Come on, Stella. You too."

Stella smiled cooly and said, "Not for a million credits. Not until you all take three or four sanisteams, anyway." She took a seat on the other side of the shuttle, careful not to jostle the recumbent Bail's feet.

Poe gasped with mock-offense. "Are you telling me that after two days of Imperial custody - or a few time parts sprinting around a Super Star Destroyer in an impermeable plastisteel shell," he added, reaching up to knock his knuckles lightly against Finn's armored and uninjured shoulder, "that we are a bit ripe?"

Stella's eyebrows arched higher. "I think I'll have to comm Leia's protocol droid to get a suitable range of words to properly describe your odor."

Breha snickered and Poe pouted dramatically at Stella, who rolled her eyes right back at him. "You're all heart," Poe told her and draped his arms loosely over Finn and Breha's shoulders before leaning back and closing his eyes. Breha shook her head again, then sighed and let it come to a rest against Poe's arm before she shut her eyes, too.

Finn looked around at them all like they were crazy, but as he settled back in his seat a bemused smile tugged at his lips. Maybe these Rebels weren't so bad, after all.

Deep within the swirling safety of hyperspace, their shuttle flew on.