"It really wasn't that bad." Jessika Pava, the campaign's press secretary, leans against the back of one of Poe's office chairs, arms crossed. She's wearing her daily uniform: black pantsuit, white t-shirt, hoop earrings, heels (Poe's not 100% convinced that she doesn't fall asleep and wake up in that outfit).

Poe paces across his office, tossing a globe-shaped stress ball back and forth. "You don't have to be nice about it. Just - tell me what the damage is."

"If this slip-up was disastrous for the campaign's image, I would let you know. But it's not."

"I'm sorry if this comes out as arrogant," he says, "but is it disastrous for my image?"

"That did come out as arrogant." She rests her hands on the chairs back, shrugs. "And no, it's not disastrous. Just embarrassing."

Poe rubs his face with the palms of his hands, stops in his tracks. "Everything I do is an extension of the candidate I work for. Everything. If I tell an Imperialist political advisor to shut the hell up on live TV, it's like Leia Organa is telling an Imperialist political advisor to shut the hell up on live TV."

"I know that," Jess says. "But you've done everything you can do. You've reached out to him, tweeted out an apology...now we just have to wait for it to blow over. It sounds contradictory, but the more we try to control this, it's gonna become a bigger thing."

"I won't let this happen again."

"Okay," she says, eyebrows raised, voice a little high-pitched.

He narrows his eyes at her. "What?"

"I just said okay."

"No, you said," he mimics her voice, "okay."

"Just out of curiosity," she tilts her head, "how many hours did you sleep last night?"

"Four."

"And how many cups of coffee have you had since...say, eight o'clock?'

"Four."

She sighs, tucks a strand of long black hair behind her ear. "Do you have a hair tie?"

"Uh…" He starts looking around his office.

"You know," Jess pulls out the chair and sits down, facing his desk. "One time, when I was in college, I had this big presentation for my political science course. I spent every waking moment on it, barely slept for three weeks, forgot to eat…"

Poe opens the junk drawer of his desk, rummaging inside. He could've sworn that he had a hair tie holding together a bundle of pens somewhere.

"Do you know what happened when I got in front of the entire class?"

He looks up at her, hand still deep in the drawer. "What?"

"I burst into tears. Not little tears, either. Full-on, red-face, snotty-nose, sobbing. It was horrible. I failed the class."

"Yikes."

"Yikes indeed." She takes his fresh cup of coffee off of his desk. "What kind of cream's in here?"

"It's black."

She takes a swig of it and swallows, wincing. "Disgusting."

He opens a new drawer, rummages through this one. "Yeah, well, it's not your coffee order." He pulls out a three-inch long string of twine. "Does twine work?"

"Huh?"

"For a hair tie. Does twine work?"

"Yeah. Sure." She grabs it from him and starts lacing it underneath her hair. "Do you see the analogy that I'm trying to make?"

"With what? The twine?"

"With my political science class, dumbass."

"I thought you were just trying to make me feel better by sharing something vastly more embarrassing that happened to you." He pulls out his desk chair and sits down, facing Jess.

She looks at him flatly. "You know what I'm trying to say. You're getting burnt out. And it's starting to show."

"I -"

"You don't take care of yourself, you don't sleep, you have no personal life…" She counts on her fingers.

Poe sets his stress ball down on the desk. "I have to give this my all. One-hundred and ten percent."

Jess rolls her eyes. "Bullshit. That saying is bullshit. It's physically and mathematically impossible to give one-hundred and ten percent of anything."

"Pretty sure it's hyperbole." Poe cocks a brow.

"Still bullshit. Do you know what my mom used to say? 'If you make your work your life, it'll be the death of you.'"

"Your mother sounds like a very morbid person," he says. "And it's not about me. None of it's about me. It's about Organa, and it's about beating a guy that's been damaging our community for eight years. If that comes at my expense, then so be it."

Jess takes a longer sip of Poe's coffee, winces again. "For an arrogant guy, you're dangerously selfless."

"It's not about me," he repeats.

"I'm thinking about the campaign as much as I'm thinking about you. You said it yourself: you're an extension of Organa. You're running on fumes, and it's making you act like an idiot, and it's making Organa look like an idiot." She yanks the twine out from under her hair. "Can you tie this damn thing?"

Poe stands up, walks over to the back of her chair. She hands him the twine, and he slides it underneath her straight dark hair.

Her hair smells like cinnamon. Is that a weird thing to notice? It's not like he was sniffing it like a creep, it just sort of wafted up.

He double-knots it.

Jess reaches up to smooth her ponytail, accidentally grazes the side of Poe's hand.

He pulls his hand away quickly.

"Thanks," she says.

"No problem," Poe mumbles.

She scoots her chair out, stands up, and turns to face him. "If you really care about this campaign, you'll care about yourself, too. Get a good night's sleep, do something actually fun, work on your caffeine addiction, maybe go on a date…?"

Poe cringes. "Tried that. It just made me more stressed."

"It's not stressful with the right person."

"Yeah, but you have to find that person. That's the stressful part."

She frowns, shoulders dropping. "True."

Poe slides his hands into his pockets. "How's it going with that one guy? What's his name? Mike? Mark?"

"Calvin. He ghosted me."

"Eh, you don't deserve a Calvin."

Jess smiles, red lipstick cracking at the corners of her mouth. "I really don't."

Poe hesitates, thinks he might have the balls to ask her a question he's been wanting to ask for a couple months now, then realizes that he doesn't.

There's a knock at the frame of the open door.

Poe looks over Jess's shoulder and sees Wexley.

"I thought you might want to know that you've turned into a gif," he says, looking amused.

"Could've gone all day without knowing that, Snap," Poe says.

Jess sighs. "Income inequality, systemic racism, homelessness, gentrification, privatized prisons...and political Twitter is freaking out over someone saying a PG-rated cuss word on CNN."

"Internet's a bitch." Wexley shrugs.

Jess grabs Poe's coffee off of his desk. "I need a raise," she says, then walks out the door.

Wexley waits until the click of her heels fade, then mutters, "You asked her out yet, coward?"

Poe picks up his stress ball and throws it at him.

"Hi?" Jannah says, squinting at the text. "Just Hi? No follow-up text or anything?"

She and Rey are both leaned over the counter of the book shop, staring at the one-word text like it's some sort of ancient cryptic document.

Rey tugs her sweater over her palms, rests her chin on her hands. "No follow-up text. Not even a typing bubble. Just Hi."

"What's up with the period?"

"I know, right? I thought maybe it was a drunk text, but no one punctuates when they're wasted."

"It's so...deliberate. So serious," Jannah says. "What are you going to say back?"

"I'm not sure." Rey picks up her phone and draws it closer to her eyes.

"You could just not say anything."

Rey looks at Jannah. "That's a bit cold, isn't it?"

"He's the one that didn't talk to you for ten months!" she says. "And besides, what if he's still…" Jannah raises her eyebrows pointedly.

"But if he's still…" Rey raises her eyebrows back. "...then he would continue on not talking to me. That's why he stopped talking to me in the first place. Maybe he's reaching out to me because he's over it."

"Or maybe he's reaching out to you because he's hoping that you've come to feel the same way."

Rey turns off her phone screen, sets it on the counter face-down as if to make the text disappear. "It used to be so easy, talking to him. Now I can't even respond to a simple Hi."

Jannah pushes herself off the counter and walks over to one of the bookshelves, beginning to rearrange the books in the correct order. "What did you two talk about yesterday?"

"Nothing really," she says, drumming her nails against the counter. "Small talk. I told him that I had a new roommate, he told me about his play...he asked me if I had written anything, I said that I hadn't, and he said that I should - "

"And you got all squirmy about that, I'm guessing?" she says, pulling out a copy of Fahrenheit 451 and reading the back of it.

"I didn't get all squirmy, I just...happened to leave immediately after he said that."

Jannah frowns, looks up at Rey. "Because he's right?"

Rey feels her shoulders tense. She's getting squirmy again. "It's not my thing."

"It's very, very, very much your thing. It's been your thing ever since I met you."

"Well, it's not anymore," she says. "It's not like I haven't tried. I have. I just freeze. It's like I've forgotten how to do it."

Jannah walks over to her, rests her elbows on the other side of the counter. "You haven't forgotten. You're just scared."

The store bell chimes.

Finn bursts into the shop, panting.

Rey looks at him, concerned. "Are you okay?"

Jannah turns around. "Did the fork guy chase you?"

He rests his hands on his knees, letting out a long puff of a breath. "'The hell is the fork guy?"

"Oh, he's harmless." Rey waves her hand in dismissal.

Finn pulls himself upright, squinting at Rey. "Let's come back to that," he says. "But I have news."

"Good or bad?" Jannah asks.

"Good." He smiles. "Really good."

"Well, what is it?"

"Just…" Finn pants, "...one sec…" He finally catches his breath. "I got an interview. With the Coruscant Times."

Rey throws up her hands. "That's amazing!"

"I know, right? I've read pretty much every issue since I was like, fourteen. It's my dream job."

"How did you score that?" Jannah asks.

"Poe knows my work, apparently. And he works for Leia Organa, who's married to Han Solo, who's the editor-in-chief for the Coruscant Times."

"He's a legend!" Rey exclaims.

"I know! I knooow!" He jumps on his heels. "Apparently Poe sent him something I wrote, and Solo said he thought it was interesting - "

"He thought it was interesting?" Rey says, her voice becoming high-pitched out of excitement.

"Yeah." He nods and crosses his arms, acting mock-nonchalant. "Yeah. Not to brag or anything, but a Pulitzer Prize winner thought my work was interesting." The cool facade crumbles away quickly, his mouth breaking into a wide grin.

"I mean, you are pretty good," Jannah says coolly.

"Is that a compliment?" Finn raises his eyebrows. "Did you just compliment me?"

Jannah's eyes go to the ground. "I'm saying that it's not unreasonable for someone to think that your work is engaging..."

"She's complimenting you," Rey says. She clasps her hands together. "We need to celebrate tonight. Have you ever been to Maz's Castle?"

He shakes his head. "Nah, I've barely been to any places in the Kuat District."

"They have this theme every Wednesday. '83 and Under'. Every song released after 1983 is banned from the jukebox. There's also a few puzzled seniors - the name is a bit confusing. But it's a lot of fun, I promise. I'll buy drinks." A thought pops into her head. "Unless you have other friends you want to celebrate with, of course. You don't have to - "

"No, no. I don't have any friends." He furrows his brow. "I mean, I do have friends, but I don't really like most of them. Your thing sounds great. But I should probably invite Poe…"

Rey involuntarily screws her face up.

"He got me the interview," Finn says. "I don't want to be rude."

"Mm hm." Rey crosses her arms. "I'm sure that's the only reason."

Finn scratches the back of his neck. "He also seems like a nice guy…"

"Well, good luck getting him to go to anything," Jannah says. "He's addicted to his work. He's like a female lead in a Hallmark movie. Except less white. And heterosexual."

"You do not seem like the Hallmark movie type," Finn says.

"I am a multifaceted woman," Jannah says, "with terrible taste in movies."

Rey sighs. "It's your celebration. I guess you can invite him. Just know that I'm physically incapable of not arguing with him."

"Too bad I can't get drunk, then," Finn says. "The interview's on Friday. I have to start prepping tomorrow." After a moment, his eyes go wide. "Oh, God. Oh no."

"What?" Rey asks.

"I have an interview with the Editor-In-Chief of the Coruscant Times."

"Yeah, mate," Jannah says, "you already told us that."

He runs a hand over the side of his face. "I actually have to...I've gotta pitch myself to this guy. I have to seem articulate, and clever, and way smarter than I actually am...I have to impress him. How the hell am I going to impress him?"

Rey gives him a reassuring smile. "You'll do great."

I'm an idiot, Ben thinks. I'm chronically idiotic.

He looks down at his black phone screen. Of course she's not going to respond. Why the hell would she respond? He's avoided her, and she's avoided him, and they've avoided each other. So far, that's been a good thing for both of them; there's nothing really left to salvage from their relationship after Ben exploded it into bits ten months ago.

He doesn't even really know why he did it. He was sitting in his apartment alone, watching "Frasier", eating leftover lasagna (you know, as you do) when he started thinking about their conversation on the stairwell. He thought about how her nose looked a little sunburnt, and that she looked a little bit sad. Then all of his common sense left his body and he sent that stupid text:

Hi.

A few seconds later, it was marked as Read, and those little three dots that means someone is typing appeared. But then those dots disappeared, and they haven't appeared since.

It's kind of, sort of extremely torturous, but at least one of them is being smart. Attempting to rebuild their relationship would only result in pain.

"Solo?"

Ben looks up, snapping out of his thoughts. "Mm?"

"Did you like that better?"

The lead actress stands on the stage, looking expectantly at Ben's spot in the audience. She has tears streaming down her face as she sits at the prop table.

"Yeah - uh - can you do that again?"

She's barely hiding her frustration as she scoots back her chair. "Okay...fine."

Hux, who's in the seat next to Ben, nudges his arm with his elbow. "That was perfect. She doesn't need to…" he says under his breath, then shouts to the actress: "You don't need to do it again. Let's take five."

She looks at Ben, unsure.

"Yeah," Ben says, tapping his pen against his clipboard. "Let's take a break."

The actress shuffles off the stage, looking relieved.

Hux turns himself in his chair to face Ben, crossing his legs. "What the hell is wrong with you today?"

"You can't just wrap up a scene without my input," Ben says, a slight edge to his voice.

"I can if you're not paying attention, and you're not paying attention. You've been barely there all day."

"I'm just tired." Ben sets down his clipboard and stands up, stretching his stiff arms behind his back.

His phone buzzes, falling off of the armrest and into his seat.

He quickly grabs it and reads the notification on his lock screen. Not Rey. Just an email from the sound designer. "Dammit," Ben blurts.

Hux is still staring at him. "You need to get out."

"You need to get out," Ben says, offended.

"No," he shakes his head, "I mean...you need to go out. Be somewhere besides the theatre and your apartment. You live in the biggest city in America, and you only go to two places."

"I like those two places."

"You're becoming a sad little hermit man."

"I am not a sad little hermit man."

He raises his eyebrows at him. "What did you do last night?"

Ben hesitates, thinks about lying, then says, "I ate leftover lasagna and watched 'Frasier'."

"And the night before?"

"I made lasagna - "

" - And watched 'Frasier'?"

"No, actually. 'Seinfeld'."

Hux throws his head back melodramatically. "Dear Lord. Catholic nuns have more of a social life than you." He brings his head forward again, thrusts a finger at Ben. "We're going out tonight."

"I'm not going to one of your weird pretentious hipster bars in the Bespin District."

"I know, I know," Hux says, rubbing his chin. "What about...what's that place across from your apartment? Run by that eccentric woman with the glasses?"

"Maz's Castle?"

"Yes," he says. "Maz's Castle."

Ben chuckles. "You hate that place."

"I hate the entire Kuat District with an absolute passion," he says. "But I am in a particularly sacrificial mood today."

"What if I have plans?"

Hux uncrosses his legs and stands up. "You don't. Maz's Castle. Seven-Thirty."

"It's '83 and Under' night."

"What in God's name does that mean?"

"Every song released after 1983 is banned from the jukebox. Dress accordingly."

Hux groans. "Of course there's a theme."