II.

Poe jerks awake when his head falls forward and his chin hits his chest. He's been lulled to sleep by the dark, by the cold surrounding them and the heat maintaining them, and most of all, by Rey's light chanting. He hopes he wasn't out for long as he stretches his neck and shoulders, then stands.

Rey is still on the other side of the cave, but she seems all right. He decides to check on the weather. Scanners tell him it's clearing up, with nothing else behind it; a quick check outside tells him its cold and wet, but the wind and rain has stopped. Unfortunately, it's getting dark; they've been in the cave for almost three hours.

He walks over to Rey, gently touches her shoulder and is grateful when he doesn't startle her. She lets out a long breath, opens her eyes, and nods. He can't tell what she's thinking, or feeling, whether she's had success or failure. She follows him back to the ancient Jedi camp and sits down for some water.

"All right?" he asks. He doubts she'll confide in him, and is surprised when she smiles.

"All right," she says. "It's definitely some sort of nexus, but it's not the Dark side, not exactly. It's more primal. Actually a bit boring, to be honest." She smiles and shrugs. "I think I dozed off."

"Me too," Poe laughs. "If you're ready, we should try to make it back to the ship before dark."

"Is it safe?" she asks.

"I looked outside, and it's a mess, but the wind and rain has stopped," Poe replies. "So not the best conditions, but better than scrambling up those rocks after nightfall."

"I'm worried about whatever creatures attacked our Jedi."

Poe picks up his scanner and runs it again, but there are no lifeform readings other than their own for several meters. "Still nothing. I say we go, before it's too late."

They head outside; it's already colder than it was last time he checked. It's going to be a miserable climb out of the canyon, and that's if they can even find their way now that half the area is mud. They search for a way up that isn't completely washed away, and are moving farther and farther away from the cave when they hear it: the distinct sound of rocks falling into the puddles around them from the top of the canyon above.

Poe exchanges a look with Rey. He takes out his blaster, she unhooks her lightsaber. They slow down, each of them scanning opposite sides of the canyon, searching the top of the rocks. They are no longer alone, Poe is certain.

Before he can check his scanner, there is a low snarl from his right, and then from behind him. In front of them, more rocks tumble to the floor of the canyon. A snuffling echoes through the air.

"There's something alive in here," Rey says, looking around the area for whatever it is. "Only I can't sense it."

That stops Poe, makes his blood run cold. "What? You can't sense it with the Force?" She shakes her head, and he swallows. "That's not good. Really not good." He doesn't need to be a Jedi to know there's something out there, and if it can hide from the Force, it's going to be dangerous.

"I don't know what can do that," she says. "But I agree. Maybe we should—"

"Run!" Poe shouts, and grabs her hand. She yanks it back (Finn liked to joke about that, now Poe has his own story to tell) and runs by his side, both of them trying to find a way up out of the canyon. Poe makes the mistake of glancing behind him and sees what's chasing him: it's like a hound from hell, the size of a bear only faster, all fangs and claws and barbed tail, and there are at least six of them, red as blood. He runs faster, a sinking feeling in his gut: they should be running back toward the cave and defending it.

"We need to get up above them!" he shouts at Rey. She barely hesitates, then find a path. Poe follows quickly, has the wild hope that maybe the things behind them can't climb.

They can.

And they are just as fast on the rocky incline, whereas Poe and Rey are running and falling and staggering back, cutting their hands and knees on the rocks when they are not slipping in the mud. Poe goes left, finds an opening and gets above Rey, offering a hand when she slips. She takes it this time, then shouts as one of the beasts grabs her around the ankle with its gruesome teeth. Poe reaches out with his other hand, but before he can grab her arm, she's gone, sliding down the rocky incline, half a dozen of the ravening beasts hissing and growling and rolling with her.

For one second, Poe is paralyzed, then his blaster is out and he prays to the stars he doesn't hit Rey as he tries to take them out. He shoots at least two before he sees her lightsaber ignite, and after several slashes—what kind of animal can withstand a lightsaber, anyway?—one of them flies apart and the others back up. She tries to stand, but her ankle is a mangled mess, and her free hand is wrapped around her right side, hugging her ribs. The last three beasts are circling her as she shouts up at Poe.

"Run! Get back to the ship!"

"Are you insane?" he shouts back. "They'll eat you alive!"

"I can handle them!"

"You can barely walk!" He starts the wet slide down to where she's turning in a slow circle, holding off the last three, taking down one as he gets closer. What is strange is that none of them pay him any attention, even when he's clearly a threat from behind. If he didn't know better, he'd say they were drawn to Rey.

Before he can get to her, eight more of the monsters appear from below, hopping easily up the canyon. Rey slices one before going down in a tangle of red-scaled arms and legs, tumbling down the incline all the way to the bottom. Poe's heart practically stops and his vision narrows. It's like when he's in his X-wing, in the heat of battle, and he sees only what he needs to see.

With a preternatural calm, he stops running, settles his stance, and takes down the remaining beasts. Just like that, like taking out a TIE squadron, every last one. He couldn't do it again if he tried. Glancing around the area, he waits for more, and when they don't come snarling at him, he hurries down to Rey.

She's in bad shape, unconscious and bleeding, her ankle mangled from where the first one grabbed her. Her head is bleeding from a deep cut, and he can only imagine the internal injuries she must have from falling so far. The problem is, she's fallen down to the canyon floor, and Poe's not sure he can get her up on his own in her state. He needs to at least stabilize her first, before finding a path up the canyon wall that isn't mud.

And then he hears a howl in the near distance, and another, and his decision is made. With a surge of adrenaline, he lifts her into his arms and starts for the cave, staggering in the mud. He sets her down in the back before hurrying to the entrance. He can hear more creatures approaching, and looks wildly for something to block the door, only there's nothing but bones. If Rey were awake, she could float a rock over the entrance, but she's not, and he can't use the Force. He also can't defend it forever: their dead Jedi proved that. He needs some kind of shield.

Scrambling back to the metal containers, he searches for something, anything, he can rig into a shield of some kind. He can't believe his luck when he remembers the Mandalorian power shield in the dirt next to the skeleton. He grabs some extra powers cells, the arm shield, and hurries back over to the entrance.

The beasts are prowling outside the door, but not entering. If they're drawn to the Force, he'd expect the nexus Rey sensed to draw them in. He wonders if it's a natural fear of dark spaces that's keeping them out, or perhaps just this one, where so many died fighting the Jedi. Either way, it gives him time. Because even if they are reluctant now, he suspects they will overcome it once they realize Rey is inside and not coming out. He needs to shield the entrance, and rigging the Mandaloian shield is the only thing he can think of; he hopes it will be big enough for the entrance.

His hands are shaking as he connects the extra power cells to the shield and turns it on, breathing out in relief when it activates after so many years. He is about to start working on reversing the polarity when one of the creatures takes a tentative step into the cave. Poe grabs his blaster and fires several shots, dropping it instantly. Maybe if more follow, he can build a wall of corpses and bones.

The thought is macabre even for him, and he laughs it off somewhat hysterically, his hands still shaking as he works with the delicate mechanics of the shield. Rey probably would have been done by now, but she's still unconscious in the back and he's all she's got, so he has to be good enough. He has to get it right this time. Another animal pokes its head into the dark, and Poe shoots it in the head.

The others start up an unearthly howl outside, turning Poe's blood to ice once again. He tweaks one more connection on the shield; hopefully it will repel anything that tries to come through with a strong shock, because he can't sit there forever picking them off. He needs to help Rey, come up with a plan. Blaster raised in case any more beasts try to enter, he sets the shield behind the body of one of the dead creatures and activates it.

The shield bursts to life. Another beast approaches, sniffs at it curiously, and jumps back with a pained cry when it comes into contact with the hazy barrier, the smell of burnt flesh strong. The ancient device should recharge itself, and as long as they don't run at it all at once, the shield should hold for a while.

The beasts prowl outside, hissing and spitting and growling, and Poe feels like he's trapped in some horror-holo, the kind he always hated growing up, but that had been so popular at the academy. His energy leaves in a great rush of relief that they are temporarily safe, and he staggers back over to Rey, collapsing beside her. Which is when he realizes his own injury: a gash on his leg, bleeding profusely. He must have hit a rock on his way down.

He rips part of an old blanket and binds it up; it's all he can do, he needs to help Rey. She's shivering on the ground, her breathing shallow, and he turns on the fusion furnace. Poe takes out both their medpacs—much too small for what he needs now—and finds several bacta patches that he places on her deeper lacerations, especially the one of her head. He uses antiseptics on the rest, stabilizes her ankle, and gives her a shot of whatever medicine was in the medpac, hopefully one for pain. It is the injuries he cannot see that worry him the most. He doesn't have a medical scanner, but he suspects she's broken several ribs with internal injuries. And she's still unconscious. He's not sure what else he can do for her besides get her out.

Naturally he tries his comms, and of course they are out of range in the cave. If they'd flown in X-wings, he'd have BB-8 with him, and the droid would have his ship there in no time. But BB-8 is with Finn and Chewbacca, and Poe wonders what he was thinking leaving the droid behind. What Leia was thinking sending him out with Rey, in a junker ship, to a desolate moon full of creatures from nightmares.

Forcing his hands to stop shaking again, he tries to come up with a plan. He doesn't want to leave her, but by the time Rey is ready to travel, if she can travel, it will be night, and too dark to chance the climb. And with more creatures outside, he's not sure how to get her out of the cave anyway. They seemed interested in her, far more interested than in him. He's almost certain it has to do with the Force, and that it's connected to the nexus she felt, and the dead Jedi they'd found. It doesn't make sense—attacking Rey and the Jedi yet afraid to come near the cave—but it's all he's got. Perhaps they really were reluctant to return to the sight of a slaughter. With over a dozen lying dead outside, perhaps the rest will leave and the canyon will empty by morning.

The cave is growing colder, and Poe moves closer to the furnace, sitting across from Rey. He lets his head fall back and tries not to panic. He's been in worse scrapes before, and always got out. So he's got his experience, at least, but not much else. A little help, or even inspiration, would be good.

Rey regains consciousness with a groan, and Poe moves beside her, because sure enough, she tries to sit up.

"Lay down," he tells her. "You've got all sorts of fun things going on."

"I can tell," she says, and lays back without any argument, which must mean it's bad. "What happened?"

"You were attacked by some kind of ravenous beast from hell," Poe replies. "They dragged you down the slope."

She seems to be looking into the past, remembering the attack. "There were too many of them," she whispers. "I tried to fight them off, but I couldn't."

"And I tried to shoot them off, but I couldn't, not in time," Poe says. "I'm sorry."

She frowns and turns her head toward him. "Are you okay? Did they get you?"

"No, I think they like Jedi."

Another frown. "What?"

"They all went after you, Rey," Poe tells her. "I think they're attracted to the Force." He waves his hand around the cave. "Could be why they're here, although I think whatever happened with our dead Jedi has made them leery about coming in and finishing us off."

"But I couldn't feel them through the Force," Rey protests. "I never sensed anything."

Poe thinks about it. "Then they probably have some sort of Force camo. It's not unheard of. There are creatures who are able to hide from it, even repel it."

"What were they?" Rey asks. "And where are they now?"

"Well, some more showed up, but I rigged a shield for our little cave here using that old Mandalorian power shield—"

"How?" Of course she would ask, she's always tinkering back in the cave on Ajan Kloss.

"Hooked it up to some extra power cells and reversed the polarity to shock any of 'em that try to come through," he tells her. He's a little proud of it, and even more so when she smiles up at him. He's not trying to impress her, but sometimes she seems more exasperated with him than anything else.

"Nice work," she tells him. "That was quick thinking."

"Thanks. It should keep them out for a while. As for what they were…" Poe thinks about it, childhood memories returning. "They looked like some sort of nighthunter."

"I don't know about nighthunters," Rey tells him. "Do you have anything to drink?"

He gets her a water pod from their packs, helps her lift her head to drink. "Nighthunters were ancient beasts, supposed to be extinct. Read about them as a kid, in storybooks, but I never really believed in them. I figured it was something adults made up to scare us."

"Apparently not," she murmurs. "You could be in a storybook now."

"Nah, my book's not going to be about monsters, it'll be about flying," he tells her, forcing a smile. She's closed her eyes, and Poe feels a spike of worry, that her condition is quickly worsening.

"I'm fine," she says, then coughs, but it doesn't sound good. "Well, not exactly, but I will be. What's the plan?"

"We spend the night here," Poe tells her, holding up a hand when she starts to protest. "We can't face them in the dark anyway. Hopefully by morning we can come up with another plan for getting back to the ship." He watches, her face tight with pain. "Can I get you anything? Do anything?"

She shakes her head and winces. "Keep talking, I suppose."

"Oh, I can talk your ear off, you know."

"I know." She glances at him and frowns. "Poe, why do you think Leia really sent me here?"

He has his suspicions, wonders if Rey does as well. "Like I said, it was good practice for the Y-wing, and probably a short break from your other training."

She sighs. "But you think there's more to it."

"Do you?" he counters, but it takes her a long moment to answer.

"I think she wants us to get along better." She is almost whispering, though Poe isn't sure whether that's because she's embarrassed or weak. He nods, even though she is not looking at him.

"Yeah, you might be right about that." It's the unfortunate truth. It's not that they don't get along, but it's not like her and Finn. Or him and Finn. He and Rey butt heads more often, and in a different kind of way than they butt heads with everyone else. Poe's not threatened by her, wouldn't say he's intimidated by her, and certainly not scared of her…and yet. Leia wants them to work together.

"I'm sorry," she says, not looking at him. She tries to pull the blanket closer around her and winces, so he helps. "I don't know why it's like that."

"Me neither." He speaks softly, unsure. Part of it is that they are actually quite similar, though there is something at their core that is different, something that they haven't quite figured out how to balance.

"I don't want to take your place," she says. "I really don't."

"I know. And even if you did, we need you." Poe shrugs, trying not place value on their contribution to the Resistance, to compare. He's still trying to maintain a grip on his own self confidence and not spiral into a morass of failure and anxiety. They do need her, but at the same time, she's been wrapped up in her training for months, and they need her in the field, not as a mythical weapon for the future. Maybe that's part of it: he doesn't know where she stands, even if he believes she'll stand with them in the end.

"The Resistance needs you more," she says. "And don't be difficult and argue with me just to argue."

He laughs softly at that, because he does like to argue with her, sometimes for no good reason. "I wouldn't dream of it."

"Of course you would," she says. "You're difficult."

"So are you," he throws right back. "Stubborn."

"Arrogant."

"Willful."

She laughs, but it is weaker. "What was she thinking, sending us out together?"

"I don't know, but we'll get out of this. I'm not going to let anything else happen to you." It's an empty promise, and yet he means it. She's one of the prickliest people he knows, but he's come to care about her, and he knows how much she means to Finn, and Leia.

"I know." She says it with such simple conviction that Poe almost cringes, because why? She has no reason to believe in him, yet she does. Her faith is almost as pure and complete as Finn's.

"You sound like Finn," he murmurs.

"Finn," she says. "Maybe that's it."

He's not sure what she means. "Maybe he's what?"

"The problem."

"Finn is not a problem," Poe tells her vehemently. "You know that even better than I do. He's a good man, Rey. An amazing person. What are you talking about?"

"Maybe he's the problem for us," she says. She turns her head to look at him, as if gaging his reaction. He still doesn't follow.

"What do you mean, he's the problem for us?" As soon as he says it out loud, he thinks he might understand, and wonders if that could be part of it.

"You like Finn," she says. "I like Finn. But I like him differently than you do. You don't have to worry about me. It's not what you think it is."

"Oh." Poe is slightly stunned. Is that it, that he's jealous of her? Threatened by her relationship with Finn when he has his own perfectly good relationship with the former Stormtrooper? Because it's not like for him and Finn, is it? It's not that he's never thought about it, about Finn in a different way, but when he does, he shuts it down. It's not the right time, and he doesn't want to go there even if sometimes his body (and heart) does. They're fighting a war and any one of them could die the next day.

"Well, no worries, because it's not like that for us either."

"Oh, Poe," she sighs, as if she thinks he's lying to her. Which he's not. Could it be someday? Maybe. But Poe tries not to think about the future, because it's so uncertain, so far away. They have to win the war first, in order to truly live.

"Poe?" she asks, sounding weary. "Can I sleep now, or is that bad?" He moves closer to her, alarmed.

"Depends on what you mean by sleep," he tells her.

"Just sleep," she says. "I'm tired."

"Okay, but I'm going to check on you in a few hours, okay?" He lays down beside her. "And I'll be right here if you need anything."

She smiles at him. "Thanks."

She's asleep almost immediately; he can tell by the way her face relaxes. Laying on his back, Poe stares at the ceiling and thinks about what she said— about her, and him, and Finn. About relationships and the future. He feels incredibly shallow and ashamed, and he vows to be a better person, a better friend, to them both. No matter what happens, or what his heart wants.

Author's Note:

No worries, this story will remain canon! Would love to know if anyone is reading this considering it doesn't have a pairing tag. Let a girl know what you think? Thank you for reading!