An Inferno, Scorching

It didn't take a thousand-year-old, force sensitive alien to tell that there was something wrong with Rey. It didn't even take a would-be Jedi, Masterless but awakened to the Force, to see the truth. Even Poe, as pigheaded and narrowminded as he knew he could be at times, saw Rey wasn't herself.

Rey had given up her training entirely and rarely went on missions anymore. She haunted the jungle base like a ghost of herself, with eyes and ears seemingly for things only she could hear and see. Only one thing dragged Rey from whatever mire her thoughts had become.

Well…

One person.

Intense focus replaced Rey's distant expression the moment someone mentioned Supreme Leader Kylo Ren's name.

Every day brought news of another unprecedented victory against the already crumbling First Order. Somehow, the tide had turned, bringing hope back to a rebellion that had – was it only months before? – been on the verge of its own collapse. No one knew who to thank for the change in their fortunes, but as the de facto leader of the flourishing Resistance, Poe Dameron was the one awarded the plaudits, the one credited for leading them to the freedom they'd fought so long and hard to achieve.

The Cantonicans had a saying: "Don't look a gift fathier in the mouth."

He smiled and celebrated with the others, accepted the pats on the back he didn't deserve… but he did it for the cause, not for himself. Because they saw him as the symbol of their own success.

It was exhausting.

Poe was starting to understand what Leia meant when she had tried to teach him about the burden of leadership.

He wished he'd been a better student.

Even with everything going his way, Poe found the mantle of leadership heavier than he'd expected. Sometimes, heavier than he cared to bear.

Sometimes, he longed to jump into an X-Wing and blow something up.

"Rey's burning out the subspace comms again," Finn complained as he entered the roughly hewn room, shoving aside the net curtain that provided far less privacy than any of them would like, "looking for signs of Kylo Ren." He shrugged off his leather vest and tossed it atop a stack of storage boxes before dropping an arm around Poe's shoulders from behind. "Still nothing."

Poe leaned into Finn's steadiness, closing his eyes as he breathed in the smell of metal and oil.

"You've been helping Rose with repairs," Poe said. He didn't bother responding to the other statement. Of course Rey was searching for Supreme Leader Ren. She slipped into the command center every night after most of the others had gone to bed to scan the subspace comms for mention of the elusive warlord.

Kylo Ren was as hard to find as Luke Skywalker himself these days.

Some members of the Resistance believed that the supreme leader had been killed during one of their successful raids. That he was dead, and the First Order were just trying to keep it quiet for the sake of morale. Others were convinced that Kylo Ren had gone into hiding. That fear had driven him to disappear, lest he be given the blame for the First Order's failure, the same way that Poe was given the credit for the Rebellion's victory.

If it weren't for Rey's odd outbursts when discussion turned to Ren, Poe wouldn't give much of a damn, either way. For him, no news of the supreme leader was just one less thing to worry about. But Rey cared and, because of their weird connection through the Force, that meant Finn cared.

And, since Poe cared about Finn…

"Mhm," Finn murmured, leaning back into Poe's embrace, "there's not much else to do since Rey refuses to train…"

There was a time, when they had first gotten together, that Finn's constant talk of Rey drove Poe wild with jealousy. He didn't understand then that it was just a Force thing. That Finn couldn't help but pick up on his friend's emotions. Luckily, Maz had taken Poe aside and explained things in her own… delicate way.

"Stop mooning over the boy and do something about it," she'd told him impatiently.

Poe, blushing under the ancient woman's scrutiny, had tried to pretend he wasn't hopelessly in love with his best friend. "I'm not… I mean, I care about… but…"

Trying to lie to Maz Kanata was inadvisable at best.

She didn't bother climbing up the nearest support post to beat sense into him, she just whacked him in the shin with a spanner and waited for him to bend over to grab it.

"Ow… Ow!"

Poe hopped away, clutching his shin. And his head. "What was that for?"

Maz wielded the spanner like a weapon as she advanced. "Clearly, you need to have your wits readjusted," she said. "Because instead of getting your personal life in order so you can be the leader the Resistance needs, you're moping around like a Chandrilan schoolgirl."

Cursing Maz and her ability to see what other people wished to keep secret, Poe looked away. Okay, maybe he had been a bit distracted lately, a bit testy even… but that was only because Finn wouldn't stop talking about Rey…

The diminutive orange woman crooked a finger at Poe, urging him to come down to her level. He gave her a mistrustful look. She returned it with one that was all innocence and tossed the spanner aside.

Poe crouched beside Maz.

Out of reach.

"Poe," she began in a deceptively patient voice, "the ways of the Force are mysterious. Even I have barely begun to understand them," she admitted. "But the Force joins us, unites us."

He nodded. He'd heard Leia say more or less the same. It didn't mean much more coming from Maz than it had from her.

"For those who have been awakened to the Force, those who, in another time," Maz continued, "would have been trained as Jedi… rather than Stormtroopers," she added pointedly, "they will feel it more powerfully. The less they have been trained, the less they will be able to control those feelings."

Poe's face flamed even harder. He was pigheaded, not stupid. He knew when he was being told off.

"It doesn't mean that those feelings are in any way romantic in nature," she pressed on. "Being raised as a Stormtrooper, being denied the opportunity to express emotion of any sort must be difficult for someone like Finn. You, on the other hand…" she adjusted her glasses as she gave Poe a disapproving look.

He did not want to know what she saw when she looked at him.

"Okay, okay!" Poe threw his hands up in defeat. "I'll talk to Finn." He left before Maz could embarrass him further.

Or find her spanner.

It was still difficult to remember, at times, that the bond Finn shared with Rey was a merely a result of the Force. The only time Poe never had to doubt Finn's feelings were when they were alone, like this, away from the budding Jedi and the growing shadows under her eyes. Away from the pressures of being the new commanders of the Resistance. Away from Maz and her well-meaning but all-seeing gaze.

Here, it was just them. Poe never had to wonder if Finn was thinking about Rey when they were wrapped in each other's arms late at night. When Finn's dark skin glistened with sweat from their lovemaking. When he moaned Poe's name over and over…

Turning in Finn's embrace, Poe lifted his face for a kiss that quickly grew heated. Lifting him by the waist, Finn moved from the table Poe worked at to carry him to their bed.

He didn't mention Rey again that night.

She was the first person on Poe's mind when he woke, though. Listening for the sound that had awakened him, Poe heard a faint beep, beep, beep. It took a few minutes to associate a meaning with the noise.

Kylo Ren.

Rey had finally found him.

But why was the signal still making that annoying noise? Why hadn't she turned it off when she went after him? Didn't she know people were trying to sleep?

When it became clear that no one else was going to do it, Poe resigned himself to slipping out of bed and turning the signal off. He tugged on his clothes, grumbling that he was going to have a word with her when she returned with the supreme leader… or the supreme leader's head… or whatever else it was she wanted with him.

Except…

Rey's room wasn't far from theirs. She hadn't bothered with a privacy net. Poe could see her slight, dark figure stretched across the bed. The sight made Poe's chest tighten.

She's been getting so little sleep, he thought. He'd spent so much time thinking about Rey only in terms of Finn that Poe had forgotten she was his friend too.

And she was in a bad way.

She'd want to know…

It was true that Rey would want to know Kylo Ren had been found but she needed also sleep. Her, more than most. Poe listened to one more beep, beep, beep and made a quick decision. He would go and retrieve Kylo Ren. He'd drag Ren back to the base for Rey while she got some much-needed sleep. She could do whatever she wanted with him after that.

Poe copied the coordinates, then switched off the beacon.

"Come on, BB-8," he said to the droid who rolled up to his side. "We'd better fire up the Falcon…"

He expected a trap. Even as he landed the Falcon next to the lone figure on the surface, he expected to see troopers descend on him from the distance. As he approached the inert figure, the only sign of life around, he watched the skyline for TIE fighters. With every step he took, Poe anticipated an attack that never came. Finally, he made himself look down.

It was Kylo Ken… but… it wasn't.

Poe couldn't marry the image of the crumpled, broken man on the ground before him to the all-powerful, imposing image of the supreme leader whose name alone had been enough to keep entire star systems in line. Watching the pitiful creature try to push itself to its knees, Poe couldn't even bring that name to his lips.

This would break Leia's heart, he thought, letting the blaster he held fall to his side.

"Ben?" he asked, kneeling to bring himself eye level with the badly wounded man. "Ben Solo?"

The other man lifted his head. Blood matted his dark hair, making it cling to his forehead. Breath wheezed painfully from between bloody, split lips as he twisted to meet Poe's gaze with the one eye not swollen to a slit. A dark purple bruise spread across one misshapen cheekbone.

"What happened to you?"

"Certain members of the First Order," Ben winced, "suspected me of spying for the Resistance." A coughing fit wracked his body, sent him spiraling face-first onto the dirt. Blood splattered the ground beneath him.

Ignoring his better judgement, Poe helped the broken man into a sitting position, carefully avoiding the arm that appeared to be removed from its socket. Eventually the coughs subsided, leaving Ben to drag in shaky, ragged breaths.

"Easy, easy…" Poe said comfortingly. He debated returning to the Falcon for water but dismissed the idea. It wasn't that he didn't want to help Ben – strangely, he did – but, with as severe as his wounds looked, he was worried about how much time Ben might have left and, honestly, curiosity beat at him. He had to know how the most powerful man in the galaxy had been reduced to… this.

When he was able to breathe again – dragging, awful sounding breaths that they were – Ben continued. "When they discovered that they were right, they were… displeased."

Poe's world tilted. He clamped a hand on Ben's shoulder to keep himself from sliding off as it shifted wildly beneath him. It was only the other man's hiss of pain that brought Poe back to the present.

"Sorry," he mumbled, quickly releasing Ben.

That shoulder's definitely dislocated…

"You're the spy who's been feeding us information?" Poe asked incredulously. "We're on the brink of destroying the First Order once and for all… thanks to Kylo Ren?"

The other man ducked his head as if it was something to be ashamed of. From his point of view, Poe supposed it probably was.

"Just Ben," he corrected. "Kylo Ren is dead."

"No offence," Poe countered, "but Ben Solo's not doing so great either."

Ben gave a bark of laughter that turned into another coughing bout. Poe used those precious moments to rush back to the Falcon and gather supplies. By the time the fit ended, Poe had returned with a canteen of water and an armload of medical supplies. He set to work mending Ben's wounds as best he knew how (granted, not particularly well – he was a pilot, after all, not a doctor) as the other man tried to catch his breath.

"Why?" Poe asked, lifting the canteen to Ben's lips. A fresh trickle of blood ran from one corner. "Why help us?"

"Because of her," Ben answered simply.

Poe's brows narrowed. "Word hasn't reached you? Ben, your mother died…"

Ben sighed but it wasn't out of pain. It was the same sound Finn made when he thought Poe was being particularly obtuse about something. "Every nerf herder in the galaxy knows that," he told Poe, rolling his good eye.

Frowning, Poe opened his mouth to ask who, then closed it again. An image of Rey came to mind, her expression haunted as she drifted through the base. "Oh." He cleared his throat. Well… this was… awkward. "So, uh, you two are…"

"I don't know what we are," Ben admitted, trying briefly to lift his shoulders in a shrug. He gave it up with a grimace of pain. "But this was the only way to find out."

Poe chewed on that a minute. The man had rejected everything he'd believed in, betrayed his armies, risked his life… for a girl?

For love.

Poe thought about Finn, asleep on the slightly-too-small-for-two-grown-men bed they shared back on Ajan Kloss. He pictured him waking up alone and the worry that would cross his face as he tried to figure out where Poe had gone. He remembered the stolen moments huddled together under tropical trees and behind server units. He tried to picture any future for himself that didn't include his loyal, passionate best friend and lover.

Would he, could he do the same?

Let's hope I never have to find out…

"Come on then," Poe said, grabbing Ben by his good arm and hoisting him to his feet.

"Come… where?" Ben's larger hand grabbed his for support.

"To find out what you and Rey are," Poe answered, staggering under Ben's weight. "And if all this," he gave his new companion a quick once-over, "was worth it."

Poe awkwardly helped Ben down the Falcon's boarding ramp, one slow, hobbling step at a time. To the supreme leader… former supreme leader's credit, he had to be in tremendous pain but, even though a muscle ticked in his bruised jaw each time he put pressure on the leg Poe had inexpertly splinted, he never made so much as a grunt of pain. He did, however, lean heavily on the Resistance general, which was a strange sensation.

Every fiber of his being screamed at Poe that it was wrong. That they were enemies. That he should remove the arm supporting the former First Order leader and let him fall to the ground where scum like him belonged.

And maybe kick him a few times on the way down.

But, despite everything he had done, and who he had been, Ben was still Leia's son. Poe couldn't shake the sense of obligation he felt toward Ben on her behalf.

Leia's son and Rey's… well, they were about to find out.

This is going to be a fun one to explain to the others…

"Poe!"

Finn came hurrying over, his shirt untucked and his hair mussed from sleep. He skidded to a stop several feet away. A hand came up to cover his mouth as it dropped open at the sight of Ben, broken and bleeding, in Poe's arms.

"Oh, no…" Finn breathed. He blinked rapidly, giving Poe the impression he was chasing away unexpected moisture. The catch in Finn's voice when he spoke confirmed Poe's suspicions. "Poe… what have you done?" The accusation dripped with a betrayal Poe couldn't comprehend.

He didn't have time to defend himself, to explain that he hadn't done anything. A brilliant blue light flared to life in Poe's peripheral vision. He froze. Intense heat simmered just below his chin from the lightsaber Rey held to his throat.

She spoke only two words, but they were full of such murderous rage that they, more than the weapon, filled him with dread.

"Release him."