Dawn of Tranquility, Deep Space

Poe still felt cold. He'd spent almost two hours in bacta treatment, having his lungs flushed and his flesh healed, and he still felt cold. He'd gone extra-vehicular before - not that he'd been ejected from his X-Wing this time, but with the ship's life support down he'd been subjected to the same frigid temperatures of an EV session, although thankfully not the accompanying decompression - and he knew that once the cold of vacuum got into your bones, it lingered for hours if not days. The only thing to do was to work through it - and requisition some extra blankets for his bunk.

Shivering and damp and smelling of bacta, he pulled on his trousers and then sat down on the medbay bunk to struggle into his socks and boots. He was just shrugging into his shirt when the door hissed open and Finn came in on hoverchair.

"Finn!" Poe exclaimed, his haggard face lighting up. "You're up and around!"

Finn nodded. He was wearing the sort of soft blue-grey trousers and tunic that were common to medcenter patients all over the galaxy with a stiff bacta-brace around his midsection, but without the bulky bio-regulator and scanners of that bed he already looked more like himself than he had since being carried off the Falcon. Having his eyes open again probably helped as much as the lack of medical apparatus.

"Doctor Kalonia says I can try walking this evening. She says I'm making a really good recovery." Finn's voice was almost dismissive as he spoke of his own condition, but it thickened with concern when he asked, "But Poe - how are you?"

"Fit to fly." It was the automatic response of a pilot. It didn't matter if it was true; didn't matter if the medics would have agreed or not; if a pilot was breathing, they could fly.

Finn frowned, his expression saying clearly that that wasn't what he had been asking, but Poe wasn't interested in talking about his health right now. "Have you heard from the mechanics about BB-8?" he asked.

"No." Finn's frown softened. He guided his hoverchair closer, almost crowding Poe back onto the bunk. Poe sat, because he didn't want to push his way past, and realized that had probably been what Finn intended all along: stop him from racing off to pester the mechanics, make him take a moment to rest and catch his breath. "I'm sure he'll be okay, though," Finn continued. "The Resistance has good people." His mouth twisted in a crooked smile. "If they could fix me, I'm sure they can fix him."

Poe mustered a smile, but it felt empty and false upon his lips.

"Besides, BB-8 is tougher than he looks," Finn went on. "You know he hated me when we first met, right? Saw me in your jacket, thought I'd done something to hurt you, and he was ready to put me in the ground right there on Jakku. Just him, his electro-shocker, and some girl with a stick he'd talked into doing his heavy hitting."

Poe's chuckle was weak, but it was there. "Yeah, he's a faithful little bucket of bolts."

"Can't say I was real enamored of him at first, either," Finn continued wryly, "but he grew on me fast. Faster than he had any right to, really. It was weird for me, realizing that I didn't just like this droid, I respected his opinion - which meant I thought he had one!" Finn shook his head, a vaguely baffled expression flitting across his face. "You know in the First Order, droids are seen as even less than non-humans? They're basically considered to be worth no more than what their parts would fetch as scrap. They certainly aren't seen as people...but BB-8 clearly was." He shook his head, his eyes somewhere far away. "It wasn't hard to realize that the First Order's humanocentrism was a bunch of crap - all you have to do is meet a few aliens, and you realize they're as human as anyone no matter what they look like - but droids...you see 'em around all the time and don't think about it. They're just there, following their instructions, following their programming…" A shadow passed across Finn's face. "Just like me."

Poe reached out and caught Finn's shoulder, gave it a squeeze. "Hey, Finn…"

His words of comfort were interrupted by the hiss of the door opening. Boots sounded on the deckplates as someone stepped inside, but Poe's eyes had already dropped to the floor because he heard a familiar whirring sound too: the sound of a small droid rolling across smooth deckplates. His breath caught in his throat and his eyes went wide as an orange and white astromech crossed the threshold.

"BB-8!" Poe yelled. The gleeful squeal the droid emitted was even louder. He shot forward as Poe pushed past the hoverchair and flung himself to the ground to grab the little droid. "BB-8, you're okay!"

BB-8 beeped and whistled and chirped at high speed, telling Poe how happy he was to see friend-Poe, and friend-Finn too, and to show them his new friend who had fixed him, just look how good and shiny and whole he was now! And friend-Poe was shiny and whole too, and everything was okay again!

The bite of tears stinging at the corners of his eyes made Poe blink rapidly to dispel them. He finally looked up from the little droid as someone else knelt down on the other side of BB-8, a pretty human woman in stained mechanic's coveralls with a smear of grease on her cheek.

Poe grinned like an idiot. "You fixed my droid," he said.

The woman smiled back. "I fixed your droid."

"Thank you."

"Oh no - no, it's my job, I mean, I was happy to, I mean, it's what I'm here for…"

"You work on the snubfighters sometimes too, right?" Poe asked. "I've seen you around the hangars."

She nodded, looking vaguely embarrassed to have been recognized. "Sometimes, a little, yeah. Mostly I handle droids and the big ships, but I service the shuttles and snubs too when things are busy. And I always check over my sister's ship for her. Oh!" Suddenly the mechanic's eyes widened as she remembered who she was talking to and that she had thus just admitted to breaching fleet rules to an officer of Starfighter Command. She hastened to apologize: "I - I know that's not really regulation, but - "

"No," Poe was already shaking his head, "that's good. We gotta look out for each other. Right?"

The mechanic smiled gratefully. "Right," she said. "Thank you."

BB-8 gave an encouraging whistle and rolled backwards to bump affectionately at her hands in their sturdy gloves.

Poe grinned at the little droid then looked up at the woman who had fixed him. "Hey, what's your name, miracle mechanic?"

"Rose. Rose Tico."

"Hi Rose, I'm Poe Dameron. Nice to meet you."

"I - I know who you are, Commander Dameron," she murmured, ducking her head in apparent embarrassment even as she smiled.

"Poe. Please. Anyone who can bring my little buddy here back from the brink of death gets to dispense with the formalities."

"O-okay...Poe."

"And this is Finn - "

"Finn?" Rose repeated, her jaw dropping and her eyes going wide as she looked up to gape at the man who had been watching Poe and BB-8's reunion with bemused affection.

"Um...yeah," said Finn awkwardly. "Hi?"

"The Finn? As in - as in Starkiller Finn?" Her voice climbed higher with every word until she was nearly squeaking. "Stormtrooper Finn? Defector Finn? Fought-Kylo-Ren-and-Lived-Finn?"

Poe was trying (and failing) not to laugh into his sleeve. Finn was goggling at Rose as though she had suddenly started to spout Shyriiwook. "Yep," Poe said gleefully, "that's him!"

Finn shot him a look of horrified betrayal. BB-8 whistled softly and spun his head back and forth between Finn and Rose. Poe looked like someone had just handed him an entire bucket of sweetmallow sours to snack on while he watched the show.

"Oh, wow," Rose said, her voice going small with awe. "I didn't - I mean, I never thought - I mean, I knew you were on this ship, but I didn't - the Finn, wow. I never imagined actually meeting you, face to face, like a person, just, wow, I'm not...wow. Oh wow."

"Breathe, Rose," said Poe. He leaned back against the side of his bunk and stretched one leg out, drawing the other one in to dangle his arm over his knee. He appeared to be enjoying himself thoroughly. BB-8 chortled a chorus of beeps and rolled forward to butt his head against Poe's arm like a loth-cat, then spun his dome to watch Rose some more.

"Breathe," Rose repeated, "right, sorry." She scrubbed her gloved hands over her cheeks, apparently unaware of - or unconcerned by - the second smear of grease this added to the first. "Sorry, I'm - I'm not used to - I just fix the ship, I don't spend time with - you know - with Resistance heroes, and…"

"I'm not a hero," Finn said hurriedly. He held up his hands as though he was fending off a blow. "I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and lived through it, that's all."

"No, you - you're the - you were - you're an inspiration," Rose assured him earnestly.

Finn looked like he wanted to melt right through his hoverchair.

He was saved by the arrival of yet another visitor: Leia Organa herself.

The general had exchanged her uniform for an elegant blue robe and a layered gray jacket. She wore silver earrings that matched the combs holding her long graying hair in place and did not match her omnipresent two-stoned gold ring. She also wore a tired expression, although that twisted into amusement at the sight of the small gathering in the medbay bunkroom.

"General," Poe said, and scrambled gracefully to his feet. BB-8 cooed happily and revolved in a circle beside Poe's ankles until he was facing Leia, too.

Rose's eyes went wide. "G-general!" She gulped and scrambled to her own feet with less grace and more nerves, half-falling over BB-8.

"General - ma'am," Finn said, and tried to push himself out of his seat.

Leia held up hand. "At ease, all of you," she said. "Especially you, Finn. No straining that spine, young man."

"Sorry, sir," Finn said, cringing back down in the hoverchair.

"And Rose - take a breath before you fall over, honey," Leia continued with a crooked smile. "Everybody relax, we aren't on the bridge. No decor."

"You know my name," Rose repeated in a whisper that seemed to be spoken more to herself than to Leia. "Oh, stars, General Leia knows my name."

Leia tilted her head and frowned bemusedly at the young mechanic, who belatedly seemed to realize she'd spoken aloud. Rose's cheeks darkened and she clapped her gloved hands over her mouth with a small eep.

"Uh-huh," Leia said and patted Rose gently on the arm.

Rose's wide eyes somehow opened even wider. "I - I - I - I'm sorry, I should - I have to - droids! Droids to be fixed! Yes! Sorry! Bye!"

She spun for the door, then froze, turned around, and drew herself to attention. "I mean, um, permission to depart, um, general! If that's - if you don't need - ?"

"You can go," Leia said mildly.

"Thank you," Rose whispered and fled.

Leia shook her head and turned back to face the pilot and the former stormtrooper. Poe was settling himself on the bunk again, bottom lip held between his teeth as though to restrain a laugh. Finn was no longer attempting to shove himself out of his hoverchair, but he looked uncomfortable. In the First Order, a stormtrooper who did not stand to attention in the presence of a superior officer - especially one as superior as Leia - would have been a stormtrooper who was destined for Reconditioning or execution.

"Well," Leia said. "I trust you're both recovering all right?"

Poe nodded. "Fit to fly, general," he said firmly. BB-8 beeped his concurrence.

"Yes, ma'am. Er, sir. Er...general?" Finn stammered. "I'll be, uh, fit to fight again soon too. Really. Thank you for, uh, for making the effort to restore me to functionality."

Leia raised her eyebrows. "We're not the First Order, Finn," she said. "We just call it 'healing' people and it's about care, not function."

Finn grimaced. "Right," he said. "Sorry."

Leia shook her head. "Never mind. Not your fault. Their disregard for sentient life just gets under my skin."

"You and me both," Poe muttered. BB-8 agreed with a sorrowful wooooh.

Leia smiled thinly. "But I'm not here about that," she said. She turned her focus to Finn and her smile faded, sobering to grim apology. "I'm sorry to put this on you when you're still getting back on your feet, but our situation is desperate. The galaxy didn't want to face the reality of another war, that's why they ignored the obvious danger of the First Order - but now that the truth of what happened to the Hosnian System is out there, it's harder for people to tell themselves comforting lies. Harder, but not impossible."

Finn nodded hesitantly. "Right," he said.

"We," Leia said, pressing a hand to her chest, "are taking the truth to the galaxy, saying the things people would rather not hear, while Ackbar, Statura, and Antilles take the fight to the enemy directly." She paused, fixing Finn with the look of blazing, furious compassion that had inspired generations of rebellion across the galaxy. "I need your help."

Finn's eyes widened. "My - " He glanced anxiously at Poe, but Poe was watching the general with an expression of rapt attention. "My help?"

Leia nodded. "Finn, you have a perspective on this fight that no one else does. You left the First Order - left it of your own free will! You broke their brainwashing and stood up to them and said no. And you survived doing it. You're a miracle, Finn. And the galaxy loves a miracle." Leia held out her hand. "Please, I know it's a lot to ask. But will you share your story - your voice - with the Resistance? With the galaxy?"

"I…" Finn stared at Leia. His mouth was too dry to answer. He swallowed, managed a small nod, then forced out in an even smaller voice, "Okay."

Leia smiled like a sunrise.