Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or any of its characters. I only own my OCs Cas Andé, Tani Kenobi, Niobé Skywalker and Sehr, as well as the plot surrounding them.

6. Family ties

When she came to, Cas realised she had been taken to med bay. She recognized the layout of the room, and the gentle bleeps of the machines that checked if one was still alive.

Hers had started bleeping more steadily, and a medic soon stood next to her, smiling down at her. "How are you feeling, Padawan Andé?"

She tried to sit up, groaning under the sudden assault of a headache. "Not that bad. It's almost as if I had drunk too much last night."

The medic nodded and wrote something down on his pad. Then he leaned down and checked her pupils, and her constants, before nodding again. "I don't see anything wrong. I'd still advise you not to stand up too quickly. Remain sat up for at least another ten minutes. You did exert yourself quite badly after all." He smiled kindly and left her side.

That is when Cas noticed the second bed in the room. Someone was lying on it, a mask over their peaceful face. Leia.

Cas sighed in relief when she saw the steady movement of her chest as she breathed in and out, and suddenly longed to be sat next to the General and to hold her hand.

She tried to stand, but a sudden dizziness took over, and she had to lie back down.

Too quick.

She groaned in frustration at her own body's restrictions, and waited until the dizziness was gone.

She had been gently stroking Leia's hand for an hour, trying to reach her thoughts and send her encouragements, when the door to the room slid open and she heard a gasp.

"You're awake!"

Cas turned around, releasing Leia's hand as she saw Poe stride in, without BB-8, which was peculiar in itself. He was wearing a leather jacket instead of the orange fly-suit she had last seen him in, and seemed unscathed.

She smiled kindly at him as he sat opposite her, taking Leia's other hand in his.

Poe's eyes were filled with affection for the unconscious General, and when he looked at Cas several seconds later, she almost started under such a gaze. "Thank you. For saving her."

"I couldn't let her die. It was not an option," she answered calmly, looking away from his glistening dark eyes.

They remained silent for a moment still, until he said, almost too quiet to hear, "She's my aunt."

Cas' gaze snapped up at him in surprise. "Your aunt? What do you mean?"

Poe sighed. "I think Leia, and maybe your mother, are the only ones who know this," he looked at her and she nodded, understanding his silent plea for secrecy. "My mother, Shara Bey, wasn't born Shara Bey. She was born Kali Nabié, daughter to a Jedi Knight named Irri Nabié, and Anakin Skywalker."

Cas' purple eyes doubled in size as she heard this. "You're-"

"Related to Darth Vader, yes," he sighed again. "You can imagine why I don't advertise this." He paused, lost in his thoughts as he stared at Leia. "My mother never knew her parents, they were dead within hours of her birth. And yes, she always told me to consider Anakin Skywalker to have died that day as well, because it was the truth. She was raised by one of her mother's friends on Naboo, then on Alderaan. She joined the Rebellion and met my father there. She learnt who she was after the Battle of Endor, and it shocked her so much that she changed her name. Everyone then thought that Kali Nabié had died during a mission, and that Shara Bey had joined the Rebellion soon after, just as hundreds were doing."

"She was scarred by what she had learnt," Cas whispered, knowing that nothing could possibly be more difficult to grasp than the fact that you were the child of a mass-murderer.

Poe nodded sadly. "Yes, it tormented her until the end. She told me on her deathbed, and made me promise to tell only those I trusted the most. She didn't want it known."

Cas understood the underlying meaning behind his words: he trusted her. It moved her more than words could describe, and she reached over Leia's body to take his arm. His dark eyes met hers, and when she smiled at him, he smiled back, even if his had a sad undertone to it.

"So," Cas started again a moment later, "if Leia is your aunt, it means my mother is also." She smirked, "We are cousins then."

Poe chuckled sadly and looked at her. "I never thought of it like that. I prefer not to."

"But Niobé, on the other hand-"

"Is my cousin and one of my closest friends growing up." He smirked. "So you had no reason to be jealous."

Cas' eyes widened and she let out a yelp of surprise – and also of frustration, she had to admit. "I was not jealous!"

Poe's smirk only strengthened. "Unfortunately for you, Padawan Andé, I know you a little better now, and you are a poor liar…" He winked at her, making her pout.

Damn him.

During the next hour or so, Poe and Cas discussed this and that, especially the current hell-hole the Raddus was left in. Cas was surprised, but not overtly so, upon learning that they were burning fuel to remain at a good distance of the Supremacy, while knowing that it was only a matter of time until the First Order could finally wipe the Resistance out.

She was a little more surprised when hearing that the new Commander-in-chief of the Resistance was a war-hero called Vice-Admiral Amalyn Holdo, and that she had made sure that Poe never stepped back into the com-room. She was surprised because, even if he had been demoted, Poe was still one of the best strategists on board, and it was slightly disturbing to think of him as not being part of any decision made on this ship.

"She won't refuse your presence, though," Poe added at one point.

Cas' brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"You weren't demoted, and saved the life of our beloved General. For all intents and purposes, you and Holdo still have the same powers over the rest of us."

She smirked at that, thinking of a way to piss this new leader off. She didn't like the way she had dismissed Poe. Anyone who did that to her handsome pilot deserved punition.

She didn't know where the 'her handsome pilot' had come from, but no matter.

"So let's say I wished to reinstate you, she'd have to suck it up?"

Poe chuckled, but darkly so. "I suppose she should, but it wouldn't serve our interests…" With a tender look towards Leia, he finally left her side and lead Cas back to her own bed, where they both sat away from possible prying ears.

There, he whispered to her about a plan he, Finn, and a mechanic called Rose had thought of. With Poe and Connix' help, the two of them, accompanied by BB-8, had managed to smuggle out of the ship and towards a mysterious planet where they'd find a master code-breaker who could help them get onto the Supremacy and shut the device that helped the First Order to follow them through lightspeed.

"And what's going to happen if they succeed?" Cas asked, eyes darting to Leia's sleeping form, wondering what she'd say about such a reckless plan.

"If they succeed, we take control of the Raddus and we jump to hyperspace before the First Order realises. And we'd be safe."

Cas thought very quickly. She could see the obvious quality to that plan – the First Order wouldn't know what hit them, and wouldn't be able to track them ever again; but she could also see its most blatant fault.

"Where would we jump to though? You told me we are burning fuel at an alarming rate, which means we won't be able to go wherever we want. We'll be limited in our choice. What if we run out of fuel and get stuck in some part of the galaxy where there aren't any Resistance followers?"

Poe shrank back on the bed, as if she had just slapped him. It was as if she had questioned his entire being, as if she had just questioned his loyalty to the Resistance.

He seemed shocked beyond belief.

So Cas decided to tone it down with a small smile that felt fake. "I trust you though. I know you wouldn't put us in danger like that. I apologize. I have a tendency to see all that is wrong for the moment…" She placed a hand on Poe's on top of the covers for good measure, and after painful seconds, he nodded calmly.

"Well then…until Finn and Rose come back, we should make sure you have a place secured on deck." He winked, although he didn't seem entirely in it, and exited the room.

Cas let out a breath. She raised her gaze to the ceiling and beyond, to the stars, praying whoever would listen in the Force that Poe wouldn't lead them to a dead-end…

A/N: So, as you have by now realised, I twisted Poe's family tree a bit. In my previous trilogies, I introduced a fellow Jedi Knight called Irri Nabié, who happened to be bestfriends with Obi-Wan and Anakin, and in love with the latter. After a night of drunkenness and stupidness, she got pregnant, but didn't know until she got in labour while on Polis Massa. She gave her daughter to Sabé, former handmaiden to Padmé, and left to get herself killed trying to get Vader back to the Light. Kali is seen in only one scene, on Endor, but I felt like, to fuse the two timelines together with the new lore, it could happen that she later changed her name and mothered our handsome and reckless pilot. Thoughts?