CHAPTER SEVEN:
A.N. As promised, here's another chapter to round out this weekend :)
Poe squirms uncomfortably in the cockpit, trying not to glance over at Finn. He's already failed twenty-odd times to avoid staring. And he's bound to fail this time too.
On cue, his gaze slips away, towards the stoic figure in the co-pilot seat at his right. As with every time before, Finn's eyes are set straight ahead, his jaw clenched, his brow low.
Poe's getting tired of this. This avoidance. This discomfort. He opens his mouth, but the words he wants to say are nowhere to be found. He swallows down the words that don't exist and glances forward again, out at the whirling word of hyperspace.
Finn shifts his gaze left, a subtle look out of the corner of his eye. He purses his lips, debating the pros and cons of speaking up. His mouth parts, just barely, then rigidly sets itself shut again. There's nothing to say. No words to fix what's been broken between them.
It takes a handful of moments before the two of them take a glance at the other at the same moment. The surprise of meeting gazes holds them there. And forces words out at last.
"I'm sorry, Finn. Really," Poe speaks first.
Finn shrugs. "Yeah. Sure."
Poe takes a deep breath, resolve building to keep the conversations going. "Leia's right, you know?"
"Okay."
"It's better this way."
"If you say so."
Poe grits his teeth against Finn's cold front. "Whatever it is you want to say, say it now. Please. I can't stand this anymore."
Finn flinches, but manages to throw daggers back at Poe. "Oh, you can't take it?" He scoffs. "Those are my friends you just had shipped off to a prison camp."
—"Temporarily," Poe throws in—
Finn talks over him. "How does that make us better than the First Order?"
"This isn't—"
"You said you trusted me."
"I do, but I—"
"You just couldn't choose me over Leia."
It's Poe's turn to cringe. He rubs a wearied hand over his forehead. "It's not like that. You know it's not."
"Just because you say it's not, doesn't make it so," Finn says coolly, turning away from him, eyes set out the window.
So much for that hope of winning Finn back to his side before they arrived at base. If only Poe could find the right words, the ones to make things good between them again. It's starting to feel like those words don't exist, or that it will take a miracle to find them.
He takes a leap of faith that they are in his grasp. "Once we arrive, we'll find Leia. We'll talk to her. Figure it out. I promise. We won't abandon them there."
Finn gives no reply, feigning deafness against Poe's pleas.
Silence holds them in the cockpit again...
...and lingers until they burst out of hyperspace, Ajan Kloss rising up before them.
Finn breaks the tension this time. "I do plan to talk to Leia, to figure it out. But I don't want your help."
He slips out of the cockpit, leaving Poe with a metaphorical knife wedged in between his ribs. A strike, a wound, Poe dismally recognizes as one he deserves.