Poe had met Ben Solo for the first and only time when he had been fourteen. His mother, Shara Bey, and Leia Organa had been friends since their Rebellion days, and young teenage Poe Dameron had found himself bored out of his mind at a state dinner.

That was until Ben Solo had been sat down across from him. Their mothers were hoping to inspire a friendship, apparently. It didn't work. Not quite.

Poe had heard rumors about Ben Solo for years. Rumors that he wasn't quite right in the head, that he could hear your thoughts. That he was creep who could possess you and manipulate you if you weren't careful.

So, naturally, when Ben Solo turned out to be a fellow bored teen at a too-fancy dinner, Poe was sorely disappointed. Solo was just a hollow-faced boy around his own age, with ears too big for his head and already taller then most of the adults there. It made him hunch down in his seat in awkwardness.

Poe and Ben talked about flight simulators and complained about how gross the gelatin dessert was. All in all, not bad company.

Poe left the dinner thinking that the rumors about Ben were painfully untrue. Ben Solo wasn't creepy or weird or horrible. Ben Solo had just been sad.


Which is why, when Poe Dameron recognizes Ben Solo's face on the body of Kylo Ren, he feels anger first. Anger, because all those years ago he'd been wrong about him.

The second thing Poe feels is a blur of many emotions, because the next few moments are complete chaos.

Someone immediately sends a blaster bolt for Ren's head. It's dodged with ease and then Poe, and everyone else unlucky enough to be by the door, are shoved several feet backward. And Poe has been shoved like this before. Several weeks ago, actually.

People are shouting, not used to the Force being wielded against them so blatantly, and Poe feels his mouth fall open. He needs to speak, to give commands, but everything is happening so quickly and—

Kylo Ren strides forward, eyes wild and desperately clutching Rey against him. Her skin is a sickly pale, and Poe knows instantly that she's lost a lot of blood. Ren makes a sharp left, as if heading toward the tiny little makeshift infirmary on the Falcon that's not so much an infirmary as it is a med-droid with a cot and a first-aid kit.

Well, technically this was his father's ship.

"Don't follow him!" Poe shouts, and the Resistance members surrounding him eye him with apprehension and fear. He grabs Finn and yanks him back, away from the sight of Ren's cloak disappearing around a corridor.

"Rey! Rey—"

Poe gives his friend a shake. "Finn, contact the other two shuttles and tell Leia that her son is aboard our ship with a badly injured Rey—"

"Her what?!"

"Just do it! And don't let anyone else go near them, okay?"

Finn's eyes are wide and panicked. "But Rey—Kylo Ren—"

Poe draws him close. "Listen, I don't know what's going on but you know as well as I do that one wrong move and that bastard could bring this whole ship down with all of us still in it. And I don't know about you Finn, buddy, but I don't feel like dying today."

Finn swallows, then nods tightly. "But, Rey—"

"I'm going to…" Poe pauses here so that he can wince. "I'm going to go scope out the situation, okay? You stay here and keep everyone calm."

Finn is straightening to his full height, and he looks a little calmer when Rose forces her way to his side. The two of them get on well with pretty much everyone in the Resistance, and Poe feels confident leaving most of everyone under their command for the time being.

He steps back, motions toward Mattias and C'ai, who aren't so much his two most trusted men as they are the most useful with blasters. They fall in line behind him, and it doesn't take many steps away from the main corridor from the Falcon to hear the droning of the med-droid.

"—both shots have burned into the patient's stomach and upper intestines. Both injuries are fatal. The patient has about seven minutes to—"

There's the horrible, horrible noise of metal being ripped apart and Poe ducks as the head of the med-droid arcs and nearly hits him in the face.

And then there's a scream. Poe wouldn't classify it as a scream of rage—he's heard those before. He's been in enough battles, lost enough Resistance members to know the sound of someone's anger overtaking them in a fit.

This is a scream of agony.

Poe balks as soon as Rey comes into view. Someone has pulled off her shirt in order to expose her lower body and the usually white linen of her breast band is stained a bright red. There are holes in her stomach and blood seeps sluggishly out of the wounds. Poe stops in his tracks.

Kylo Ren is hunched over her, hands hovering over her wounds, as if he desperately wants to fix her but has no idea how. He's muttering things to Rey, although Poe's torture buddy seems unconscious for the time being.

There's a brief moment where Poe thinks to himself that this is what true honor among enemies must be—he'd read about it in many a war novel as a teen and young adult—the idea of someone respecting their enemy so much that they would not wish them anything but a good death. And this is decidedly not a good death for Rey.

But then Kylo Ren makes a chocking noise, so low and earnest that Poe is taken aback. Then the Knight leans over Rey's body, presses his forehead to hers, whispering to her all the while.

Poe isn't witnessing two enemies, he realizes with a jolt. He's witnessing a man in love. A man in love with a woman who is dying.

And then C'ai, who is a fantastic pilot but dumb as soup, unhelpfully says, "All our bacta is on the other shuttle."

Poe barely contains his groan. C'ai is slammed up against the ceiling before dropping back to the tiled floor, knocked out. Mattias raises his blaster, and Poe watches helplessly as the weapon is whipped out of his friend's hand and smashed against the wall. Then Mattias is given the same treatment as C'ai.

Kylo Ren moves his reddened eyes on Poe, hand outstretched to choke him or flick him against the wall as well, when Poe raises his arms in a motion of surrender.

They're all going to die. Everyone on this ship is going to die unless Poe can talk his way out of this scenario smoothly—

Rey's eyes flutter open and Ren gasps, large ungloved hand tenderly cupping her jaw. Her hazel eyes take Kylo Ren in first and the corner of her mouth turns up in meager attempt at a smile. "Ben."

Ah. His torture buddy loves Kylo Ren too.

Poe's brain grinds to a halt before whirling to life again, and suddenly so many odd things about his torture buddy make some damn sense. Of course Rey hadn't killed Snoke. Kylo Ren had killed Snoke for Rey. And of course Rey isn't constantly talking to no one. She and Kylo Ren are Force buddies.

Well, a lot more then just Force buddies, Poe gathers.

"—how to save you, Rey. Tell me how. Please—"

Kylo Ren is touching Rey's face, pale hand sticky with her blood. "I won't feel you die, Rey, I can't. I won't survive it."

He's telling the truth.

In that moment Commander Dameron thinks that maybe it's best for the Resistance if his torture buddy dies right here on this cot in the Millennium Falcon. He can shoot Kylo Ren while the man is distracted with her death, and then that'll be that. No more Supreme Leader of the First Order.

In that moment Poe Dameron, a guy who has a soft spot for holovid dramas and has seen so much death, too much death in these past few years, thinks that the worst thing for the future of the galaxy is for a love like this to be so brutally denied. It makes him feel hopeless.

And hopelessness is not what the Resistance stands for.

"You know how." Rey's voice is weak and soft, but she gazes up at the man hovered over her with adoration that is simply herculean.

"I can't, Rey. I can't. I'm not able to—" Kylo Ren is shaking his head, dark eyes shiny with unshed tears, and suddenly Poe is struggling to continue thinking of him as Kylo Ren and not Ben Solo, the miserable teen boy sitting across from Poe at a state dinner some fifteen years ago.

Poe swallows, feeling a bit uncomfortable. As if he's watching a scene play out that in theory he should not be privy to.

Blood is now dribbling from Rey onto the cot onto the floor, and Ren winces at the gentle splashing of it, as if it's the most horrifying noise in the entire universe.

There are shouts and then Finn barrels into view. "If we don't take off now we'll be overrun by the First Order!" His eyes move to a bloodied Rey and he looks stricken. "Rey—"

Poe gives him a hard shove back in the direction he came from. "Then we take off! Don't let anyone come back this way, got it?"

"But Rey—"

And Poe doesn't know how to tell Finn that she's dying. He doesn't.

There's a swear, and Poe turns to find that Rey has passed back out and Ren is running his hands through his hair, a decidedly human gesture, streaking it with wet blood. He glances over, eyes landing on Poe.

And Poe stares back. Resigns himself to shooting Kylo Ren as soon as Rey passes. Poe already carries the names and faces of all the bombers that he'd lost under his command, as well as every pilot that's been shot down under his watch. He supposes he can shoulder Ben Solo's death as well.

But then Kylo Ren does something odd. He crouches down by Rey's side, splays a hand out against Rey's wounds. He squeezes his eyes shut and a tear slips out, down his cheek to quickly drop off his chin. Kylo Ren takes a deep, steadying breath.

And the hand against Rey's belly begins to glow blue.


A/N:

So. This two-shot has become a three-shot because this fic started off as me completely dicking around and pulling shit outta my ass and has now turned into A Thing Requiring Forethought.

Last chapter should be up in a couple of days.