A/N: Welcome back! #5 here! Thanks so much for the reviews and follows and favorites, you guys are the best! Once again, I own Vara but nothing else.

Chapter 5

Not Into Safety

The medical staff aboard the Hope One made sure to tell Poe more than once that he was lucky to be alive, let alone walk away from that crash with just a sprained knee. Vara had stayed with him while he was examined, laughing when he responded by saying they didn't know him very well. They were instructed to get some rest while they awaited further orders, so they went to eat and talk about what they had seen in the few hours they'd been apart. On their flight back to the ship, Poe had told her all about flying the TIE fighter, and Vara had admitted she was extremely jealous. He brought it up again on their walk back to the ship's quarters from the cantina.

"The acceleration, Vara. I just couldn't believe it. No wonder they get to us so fast. But they're not agile, not even close to the X-wings."

"So ours are still better."

"Oh, definitely." They stopped in front of Poe's dorm and he keyed in the combo. Vara sat in the chair in the corner and Poe sat on the bed with a grunt, pulling off his boots.

"You know I've never been in a ship with you piloting before?" he said. Vara thought for a second, and it was true. Either Poe had been the one flying or they were on a much bigger ship with a crew instead.

"Yeah, you're right, huh?"

"It made me realize how good you really are. I mean, I've seen it a bunch of times on the Mirrin runs and everything, but being there was a bit different. You made that huge thing feel like it was nothing." He smiled at her, and like always, Vara couldn't help but smile back.

"Thanks, Poe. That means a lot coming from you," Vara said, and she meant it. She felt her cheeks blush a little and examined her fingernails, suddenly interested.

There was silence in the room for a minute as the two pilots collected their thoughts, listening to absolutely nothing for the first time in days.

"Vara?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I...tell you about the destroyer? I know the General is going to want to hear it when she gets back, so I want to tell you first."

She nodded, sitting up a little. "Sure."

He looked at the floor, wringing his hands. "On the planet, I took a shot at him. Right before they captured me. He froze my blaster shot in midair and held me at the same time. Searched me, didn't find anything, put me on board."

Vara listened intently. Anything Poe observed and saw could be useful, but he was also her best friend.

"First they interrogated me. Nothing unusual, cut me a couple places, whacked me over the head once. Bad strategy, if you ask me." He paused, collecting himself again. "Then he came. Ren."

Vara's eyes widened.

"I couldn't see through his helmet. It seemed so heavy, like he didn't want anything getting through." Poe shook his head. "Up until then I hadn't said anything. I told those Officers where they could stick it. Ren was different." His hand went up to the bruised spot on his head, where the officers had hit him in their frustration. "He reached into my head. I don't know, it was like...tendrils, shuffling through my thoughts, trying to find it. I tried as hard as I could to fight it, thinking of everything but BB-8, but he's so strong with the Force, it was like trying to fight off a whole shuttle full of stormtroopers with a blaster. He found the memory of what had happened on Jakku, right before he got there. He saw me send the map with BB-8. I didn't even have to say anything."

Vara stood and went to sit next to him on the bunk. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and he leaned into her a little.

"What if we'd never joined the Resistance?" he said after a hesitation.

Vara shrugged. "We'd probably still be doing rounds in the Mirrin system. Same old, same old."

"When Ren pushed through my head, I saw everything from the last ten years or so. Before I even met you. I've almost died...what, six times?"

"Let's see, there was that third run I ever did with you, the Zyde, going after the Zyde, the whole thing with the Hevurion Grace...too many." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Were there more before I met you?"

He suppressed a smile for a moment, and then his eyes went back to their thoughtful gaze. "I just thought, what if we were still there? Not even there, but retired or something."

"Don't know," Vara said, trying to imagine it. "I can't see you not flying."

"Not me. Us." He looked at her, his dark eyes searching hers. Poe had a way of staring into someone's soul, and it always caught Vara off guard a little.

"Is there any benefit to staying safe? Being normal?"

Vara pretended to think for a second, and shook her head. "Not really. We're not into safety, are we?"

Poe gave her his signature smirk. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a persistent beeping from the comm on his belt.

"Well, that'll probably be the General."

"Yeah, go ahead and have a chat with your best friend," Vara teased. Poe had always been the General's confidant, and Vara made sure to make fun of him being teacher's pet every once in a while.

"I just did," he said, winking at her.

She followed him out of his dorm, turning towards the workshops instead. "Aww, Poe," she crooned. "I always knew it."

"What, you not gonna say you're my best friend back?" he called, walking backwards away from her.

She shot his smirk back at him and blew him a kiss. "I'll be working on the droids, best friend."

Day 1 with the Resistance, approximately 1 year earlier

D'Qar

The mechanical workshop in the Resistance base on D'Qar was pretty expansive, tables full of parts and tools lining the room. Vara was sitting cross-legged on the floor, an assortment of tools and diagrams laid out around her in a loose circle within arm's reach. Working on mechanical things was her safe haven, something she'd been doing since she was a child. At an early age she started taking apart computers and putting them back together, tinkering with the household droids and making them more efficient, more powerful. She had steady hands and developed an infinite amount of patience. Until, of course, Poe burst into the room, startling her into dropping the magnetic tool in her hand.

"Vara, you gotta come see this!"

The look of excitement on his face was too much for Vara. She giggled at him, closing the panel and standing up again. "What's so important for me to stop working on my droid?"

"You just have to see this. They finished our X-wings. A step backwards in generation, but these T-70s are pretty great too. Come on," he said, taking her hand and pulling her along.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming. What do you mean they finished them? I thought they were just trying to get us new ones."

"They did. I had them do something else. General Organa told me to make mine noticeable, so I had them do this," he said as they rounded the corner into the hangar. In front of them was a black X-wing with orange stripes down its side and orange panels on the wings, like nothing Vara had ever seen.

"Isn't she beautiful? My callsign is going to be Black Leader."

"Wow, Poe. She really is." Vara ran her hand down the fighter's side. The ship was stunning. It was sleek and formidable at the same time. Vara could just picture Poe in the cockpit, leading the rest of them into battle.

"And here," he said, pulling her over to the X-wing beside his own. "This one's yours. Right here." He pointed to the side of the fighter, and Vara saw a painting. "It's a -"

"Korrina," she said, a huge smile on her face. The animal was like a combination of a tiger and a wolf, long and lithe with the teeth, claws, and hunting ability of both. The painting was of its huge head, ears pinned back, lips pulled back from its canines in a snarl.

Poe nodded. "My father told me about one he saw on the forest moon of Endor. Seemed just like you. A natural hunter, vicious, terrifyingly beautiful."

"I'm not terrifyingly beautiful," Vara scoffed. "Just terrifying." She touched the painting in awe.

"If you say so," he said, shaking his head a little. "There's one on the other side too. Same shade as mine," he said proudly.

"Poe, it's awesome," Vara said, hugging him tightly. "I'm so excited to fly it!"

"Let's take them for a test run!" They were like kids who had just gotten new toys. Sometimes nothing else mattered in the world but flying.

"You read my mind," Vara laughed. "I'm going to go change!"