AN: Writing this chapter put me in a really awful mood, then a friend died, then my grandma died... it's been a lovely week. Anyway, the flashback here was inspired (not a great word for it, you'll get what I mean later) by a certain scene in The Promise. So if you've seen the movie, you've got a visual... (again, not a great word for it)

It turned out I really did have to leave extra early every afternoon for work, it was a long walk, or limp, as I would call it. But the night walks home or to the cantina were cool, and it was nice not to sweat for a while. Occasionally Poe would still be in the cantina when I got off, and we would talk about our day. Sometimes he would get carried away and get this dreamy look in his eyes, describing the clouds or the great tailwind he had gotten. Watching him manage to enjoy his life between the days he was either risking it or killing people was good to see. I had no illusions as to what we were up against in this fight. Pilots didn't just go around doing fancy flying, they shoot to kill. And bombers needed their equipment to function flawlessly, or someone could kill them before they could get the job done. I was here to ensure that part too. We all were pieces of the Resistance machine. We were all important.

Tonight, I had about an hour left to work. One of the guys came in with a huge metal dumpster. "Presents for you milady. Only the best trash for you," he said with a smile.

I bounced up excitedly. "Yay! Thank you!" I skipped toward the dumpster and peeked over the edge. The guys had scored a scavenger vessel and I loved the spare parts I could find in the mess.

"You are such a cheap date," he chuckled. "Not many people would be so excited about trash."

"I LOVE it. So many treasures! There could be a perfectly good set of wrenches in here, you never know."

He shook his head and left laughing softly. I got a ladder, got suited up in a full body coverall, and put on some majorly tough gloves. I didn't need to get cut up while digging through this stuff. Climbing gingerly over the top edge of the bin, I started pulling stuff off the top of the pile and began the process of sorting. I wasn't going to finish this whole bin tonight, but I could make a dent in it, and I got the first pick before the morning shift would get in and loot it. This stuff turned out to be a goldmine of droid parts. Digging deeper, I felt what seemed to be a completely unbroken casing for a mini mouse droid. As I strained and pulled it out, I felt something. My fingers tingled through the gloves. The part came free from the other junk, and indeed it was a mouse droid. And I recognized it.

Shaking, I climbed out of the dumpster and carried the droid with me. I collapsed to my knees and tore off my gloves. It just wasn't possible, it couldn't be the same droid. I popped the sides off and held my breath before looking inside. I felt a little bit of tunnel vision as I saw her name scratched into the metal. Ayla. My baby sister's droid had somehow made its way across the galaxy to me. I heard this horrible noise from far off, not realizing it was me. My arms encircled the parts, and I realized I was falling apart. There wasn't any stopping this breakdown though. Years of denying myself the ability to grieve suddenly gave way, and the horrors of finding my family killed by stormtroopers came back as if it had just happened.

Jorge, the coworker who had brought the dumpster in came running through the door. "Smiley! Are you ok? Did you hurt yourself in there?" He bent down and patted my shoulders, trying to see why I was curled up in a ball. I wordlessly shook my head at him and kept crying. He sat on the ground and looked at me helplessly. When he realized I wasn't going to stop, he leaned over and said, "hang on. I'll be back."

The quiet. I remembered the lack of sound as I snuck in the back window of our home. And the mess. Seeing the house in such disarray was jolting. Fear almost paralyzed me, but I moved through the rooms looking for them. Nothing. I went back outside as quietly as I'd come in and crept through town. There was no one here. I kept walking, following a path into the woods, and I found them. All of them. The whole town. Their bodies were piled on top of one another. All of them dead. I couldn't breathe, and stumbled through looking for my family. My mom's eyes looked out through the gap in someone's elbow, hauntingly empty. I started to throw up, but kept pulling bodies off her until I found all three of them. I moved my neighbors, the cool lady who made the best cupcakes, even the guy who was my first kiss. Not able to make a sound, I held my little sister in my arms and tried to scream. But nothing came out.

I was still trying to scream when Jorge and Poe came running into the shop. At this point I had fallen over on my side, still clutching the little droid. Poe pulled my body into a sitting position and Jorge started pulling the droid out of my hands. I started to freak at that, and Poe shook his head at Jorge. "It's ok, you can hang on to that, we won't take it," he said.

"What the hell?" Jorge asked Poe quietly.

Poe shrugged and shook his head silently at him, lips pressed thinly together. "Kasey, please tell us what happened." Poe smoothed my hair back from my face.

I started hiccuping. "It was Ayla's," I choked out, ending in a wail.

Poe looked questioningly at Jorge, who shrugged his shoulders. "Who is Ayla?" Poe asked, still stroking my hair.

I started coughing, and managed to tell him. "My sister…" And I started to gag. Jorge immediately produced a bucket, and I heaved into it. My fingers shook as I held on to the edges, and it felt like I was turning myself inside out. I was so out of control of what my body was doing I couldn't see Poe mouth the words "she's dead" to Jorge. But I felt his hand slide up and down my back, and he handed me a rag to wipe my mouth. Jorge brought me a cup of water, and the three of us sat on the ground until I started to breathe normally again.

"Come on, you need some sleep," Poe said as he pulled me to a standing position. My eyes were closed, and I almost felt half asleep already.

"I'll close up here," Jorge told him. "Tell her I won't say anything to anyone. I've never seen her break before. Nobody has."

Poe nodded and steered my sleepy body out. I was vaguely aware he brought us back to his room, which was a relief. There was no way I wanted to face the people I shared a bunk with. He laid me down for the second time on his incredibly soft mattress. But this time he sat with me and pushed strands of hair away from my face that were sticking to my skin with dried tears. When I was almost asleep, he tried to pull the small droid out of my hands. I woke in a panic, and started breathing erratically again.

"Let's put this on the floor, I promise it will be here when you wake up," he tried to say soothingly, like he was talking to a wild animal. Trusting him, I let him take it from me. I started crying again, but at least it wasn't as hard as before. These were more tears of sadness, instead of the tears of horror. Poe laid down behind me and put one arm around my collarbone, pulling me close. I held on to his forearm with my fingers, and finally fell asleep as he rested his chin on the top of my head.

"Good morning," I heard in my mind. I opened my eyes to see a large black one level with the mattress staring back at me. Reaching my arm out I placed it on her lower ball lovingly. She wiggled a little with happiness, and it made me smile. Strange how I just interpret her language as if she is actually speaking my own, I understand her so easily. "How are you?" BB-8 asked.

"I'm ok sweetie." Looking around, I realized I was alone. "Where is Poe?"

"He's coming," she replied.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes, they were gross. I felt like I had done a ton of physical work, my body was so heavy and sore. The door opened, and Poe hesitantly walked in.

"Hey," he greeted me.

"Hey back," I replied. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. To me, anyway. Jorge was the one who cleaned your puke bucket." He smiled to lighten the mood.

I put my head in my hands. "That was awful. I should have been able to handle it better."

Poe rummaged through a drawer and pulled out a toothbrush. "Here. Start with this to make you feel better."

I took it and went and brushed my teeth. When I was done, I stood staring at the toothbrush in my hand, wondering where I should put it. Slowly, I deposited it into the cup that held his own toothbrush. That was a weird feeling. Poe walked in. "What's up?" he asked.

"It's nothing big. It was just a weird moment when I realized I have a toothbrush in the bathroom of a guy I'm not sleeping with. Something new for me." I turned and walked past him back into the room.

"Sit down," he said. "We're going to talk."

I obeyed. I sat back on the bed, and he pulled his only chair in front of me. "You need to get this out. Tell me why you were so upset." He took two fingers into his hand and held them firmly, giving me an anchor.

"I don't want to relive it again. It was just so awful." But I told him. The first part about me searching was ok, but not when I recounted how I found everyone. I cried through every word, not sure if he understood it all but I was only going to say it this one last time. When I got to the part where I held my sister, he moved and sat next to me on the bed and pulled me tight against him. "And then I ran," I wheezed. "I ran until I found a ship that wasn't First Order. And I hid. When the crew found me they dumped me off immediately. I lived in alleys for a while until I found a ship that would hire me as a mechanic. I did that for a couple years, and finally I scored a crew that worked here on D'qar. I've been here ever since." Exhausted, I closed my eyes.

Poe rocked me soothingly. "I can't believe you held that in for so long. But this is good for you." I started to cry again, letting the hopefully last of my frustrations out as I twisted the fabric of his shirt in my hands. When I stopped, he pulled away and rubbed my arms quickly and roughly to get the blood flowing. "Go take a shower, you'll feel better. And then we need to talk about what to do with the rest of the stuff in that dumpster. Jorge hasn't let anyone touch it in case you wanted to find more. But it was from scavengers, and it's all old stuff, so there might not be anything for you to find anyway."

I nodded and went into the bathroom. When I emerged, feeling a lot better, he was working on a data pad and a small pile of my clean clothes was on the bed. "Thank you," I said as I took them back into the bathroom to change. While I really felt like I didn't care if he saw me change clothes, I figured he didn't need to be barraged with more personal stuff from me after all this.

When I came out looking like a clean new person, he went with me back to my workshop. The guys on the first shift had left the dumpster alone, Jorge must have threatened them with something awful because usually we were vultures picking through a new bin. "They were just told there were personal items of yours in there, nobody knows what happened except me and Jorge," Poe said.

I nodded my thanks. "Is this keeping you from something? It's really nice that you're here but I don't want you to feel…" I stopped talking when I saw the look on his face. "I'm sorry. I'm glad you understand. I really need you here for this."

He hoisted me over the edge of the bin and I started sorting again. I didn't find much, but there were a few things I could tell had come from my town. I threw them back over the edge to Poe's waiting arms and kept digging until I was satisfied there wasn't anything else.

I climbed out. Poe had a piece of junk I had thrown to him raised in the air. "What is this?" He asked, an incredulous look in his eyes that I would want what to him seemed like a useless piece of crap.

"It's a cupcake pan. From the dead cupcake lady. She made the most delicious desserts I've ever eaten. And I want to remember her for the rest of my life since there probably isn't anyone else to do that for her." I sniffed my runny nose but didn't break down. Yay. "This was exhausting," I commented. "Maybe a little therapeutic. If I can get past the awful stuff maybe someday I can remember happy things from back then." I rubbed my fingers over the edge of the pan. "Like her cupcakes."

Poe gave me a big hug, sandwiching the pan between us. "You'll get through this. You're stronger than a lot of people here. And I will be here when I can if you need something."

"Thank you Poe. I couldn't have gotten through last night without you." I sniffed again and put my chin on his shoulder. "You called me Kasey."

"Yeah, I guess I did."

"Why?"

Poe was quiet for a moment, thinking. "Because at that moment you weren't the cool guy who fixed my plane, you were my friend who needed help." Pushing us apart and holding my shoulders, Poe smiled at me. "I have some work to do tonight, but I'll meet you at the cantina when you get off, ok?"

I nodded. I was tired already and still had a full night of work ahead, but I had opened a door to my memories and I needed someone to help me close it or somehow deal with it.