Episode II – Truce?

He did not look at her or turn around, instead he continued to hold something into the fire. Judging by the smell it was probably food. She did not respond. Why was she here? Why was she even still alive? "So it's the silent treatment," he told her, turning around to face her. "You could be at least a bit thankful. I saved your life out there." Still she did not reply. Instead she took the opportunity to have a more thorough look at the man in front of her. He seemed to be in his early thirties, of medium height, dark hair, dark eyes and a dashing but mischievous smile she knew some of the female staff aboard her ship would surely love if you gave them a picture of him minus the resistance uniform. The way he sat there showed her he was either very arrogant or quite confident of his skills. Maybe the latter, because she had seen his skills during their fight. Her instinct directly tried to figure out the best possibility to overpower him. He was taller, heavier and surely stronger than her. But she had been dealing with opponents like him in her training. It was only a question of the right technique. Quickly she figured out there were two additional problems. First, she was not in the physical condition to attack him, especially with the pain in her wrist and leg. Secondly, there was a blaster tied to his leg. So she concluded rather fast that, if she could not think of another possibility to unarm him, she was his prisoner.

"Dinner is ready!", got her out of her situation analysis back into reality. She raised an eyebrow towards the man at the fire. What was this about? Poe did not seem the slightest bit bothered by her hesitation and just continued to talk. "You'll have to come here for it. It comes on a stick." AN-3527 did not really walk over to him, but her stomach told her rather quickly it had a different opinion on that. She had not had a decent meal since yesterday and due to this fact was rather hungry. The woman rolled his eyes and got up slowly. The wound on her leg made it almost impossible for her to walk, so she rather stumbled than walked over to the fire and sat down opposite of him. She still hoped to make up a plan while she was eating. Having followed her movements, he then gave a stick to her with some unidentified grilled meat on it. When she hesitated, he smiled again. "Don't worry. If I wanted to kill you, I don't need to poison you. I just could have left you outside to freeze to death." That was a good argument, so she took a bite of it.

At some point she stopped eating because she felt watched. And her instinct had been right. He was watching her, while he was slowly eating his own food. "Is something wrong?", she snapped. The man just laughed. "I was asking myself whether you can actually talk. It seems you can." "There is nothing to talk about between you and me." He replied with an amused chuckle. "Because we are on different sides?" She didn't reply to it. Poe directly knew that this was the point, but decided to pressure it further just because he was bored and did not like the silence. "How are you feeling?" "I'm fine." The resistance pilot knew that was a lie. "That's good. If I had those wounds, I would not be fine. Especially not with that wrist. It looked kind of nasty. But I couldn't fix it," he told her. She did not like the friendliness he showed, because it was unusual and suspicious. If he had been her prisoner, she would not have a little chat with him at the fire and ask about his wellbeing. Instead she would try to extract the needed information from his as soon as possible. "Whatever." The pilot was slowly losing patience. "There is no need to be hostile. I was merely asking for your wellbeing." "Because a dead prisoner is of no use for the resistance?" she snapped. "You should have killed me. I am not giving you any kind of information." The man again started to laugh. "You are not my prisoner." She rose her eyebrows, clearly confused. Poe gave her an honest smile. "I have not really thought about what to do with you… yet."

She snorted. What an imbecile. No one would not take a person with him without any agenda. Like she would believe that. And if he had taken her without a plan, he seemed to be so stupid it was a wonder he was still alive. He took another bite from his dinner. "You are free to go if you like and if you survive outside. Temperature is dropping quite fast since sunset, you know," he told her. AN-3527 looked to the entrance of the cave and knew he was right. During her fall onto the planet she had noticed the planet was covered by snow. It would surely be rather cold. Especially at night. But then she would leave tomorrow at light. She again looked at the other pilot. He had definitely raised her curiosity with his strange behaviour. "Why would you rescue me if I was not your prisoner?", she inquired. "Because I'd rather kill you in a decent fight than having you freeze to death. I love challenges." "You are insane or incredibly stupid", she replied.

Poe grinned. "Maybe I am. I'm Poe Dameron by the way." AN-3527 looked at him confused. So he was that resistance pilot many people at her base had been talking about. That was why he seemed so familiar. "AN-3527," she then replied, not really knowing why she did that. "Why do they always give you those blasted names? Can't they think of a real one?" "This is a real one," she protested. "I am not calling you that," he told her, starting to think about a proper name for her. When he had been sitting with Finn inside that TIE-fighter the name for the stormtrooper had come to his mind directly. But here he found it much more difficult. "Then just don't talk to me, Poe Dameron." "It's Poe." He then beamed at her. "I got one." "What?" "Your name. I'll call you Alex", he told her. "Whatever you like. We don't have to talk about anything. So I don't care what you call me," she replied clearly annoyed. He held out a bottle of water to her. "Oh come on. We are stranded on an ice planet with civilisation probably miles away. If there is even any kind of civilisation..." She took the water from his hands and opened the bottle. "Well, then you are even more insane than I thought. Now not only I will die, but you will do so as well. Not a very honourable death for a resistance fighter to die saving the enemy." Poe Dameron looked at the amused but cold smile she gave him. "Who said we were going to die? I have a plan," he told her. She did not seem to have bought that as she just took another bite from her dinner. "Has somebody ever told you that for a resistance pilot you are a pretty bad liar?" He touched his forehead where still some dried blood notified of the wound that hat yet been untended to and nodded. "If you have better ideas Alex, do not hesitate to tell me." "You wish." With that she slowly got up from her place and limped back to the point where she had woken up earlier.

The next morning AN-3527 was woken up by the bright white light of the sun reflected into the snow outside. During the night, that stupid pilot must have moved her, because she was lying closer to the fire and with that in a different place than the one she fell asleep on. And so far she had no known history of sleepwalking. She thanked the dark lords that that annoying prat was nowhere in sight. Her leg still hurt like hell, but if she wanted to leave, she had to go as long as Poe Dameron was away. Which was immediately.

Walking in the snow was way more difficult and painful than she had imagined. But she had to make it to any kind of outpost if she ever wanted to return to her ship. So she waded on through the knee-deep snow into the nothingness before her. It was cold and windy and she had to rest a lot more often than she had hoped for. "Do you seriously think you can get anywhere in that condition?" a voice asked from behind. She turned to look into the smug face of the resistance pilot standing on a nearby rock looking down to her. "Fuck off", she shouted back. AN-3527 did not expect that her words would have any effect on him and was quite surprised when he turned. "Fine. Go on and die then. You can walk into that direction for hours without finding anything. But whatever. It's not like I cared," he responded. With that he started to walk away on some makeshift snow shoes. "Idiot." She got up and continued her march.

Two kilometres later, she was cursing herself for not listening to the man. He might be on the other side but he had been right. She would never reach any outpost with that injury. Especially as the injury on her leg seemed to be worse than it looked from the outside. AN-3527 sat down in the snow again as she could not walk anymore and started to contemplate whether she should try to head back to the cave. Still cursing the resistance pilot, she started to slowly limp back to the cave.

Poe Dameron knew he should not care what happened to the Special Forces pilot. If he had been able to turn her against the First Order, she surely would have made a nice addition to the Resistance. It had been worth a try, although he had to admit it was rather naïve to think it was that easy. He decided it was better not to think about it anymore and focus on the task at hand. Which was getting off that godforsaken planet. Apart from the one time he had gotten arrested and had been tortured by the First Order, he had never failed a task. So far, the black squad leader had used the day well. He had searched the surroundings for any sign of a nearby settlement, built a pair of snow shoes to make it easier to walk around and already hunted two rather big furry animals with his blaster. Currently, he was skinning his prey to use the meat for dinner and the fur for a blanket against the cold.

When he left the cave to search for some more firewood later on, he noticed something black lying in the snow only a few hundred meters away. Interested but cautious, he took out his blaster and walked over to find AN-3527 lying in the snow staring at the sky with those sparkling green eyes he had noticed when she first looked at him the day before. She noticed his presence, but did not look at him. Instead she continued to look to the sky. "It's not only a flesh wound. I think it's broken," she concluded, trying to avoid him asking why she had come back at all. Poe smiled at her and did not answer. He knew her pride would not let her accept defeat. He just knelt down and helped her stand up to walk her back to the cave in silence. After only a few meters he already lost his patience and before she could protest, lifted her up to carry her bridal style back to the cave.

Inside, he placed her down next to the fire, and threw some more wood into it. "Take off your clothes," he ordered whilst taking off the orange flight suit he was wearing. "What?" AN-3527 asked, clearly confused. He was not really going to do what she suspected him to? She had considered the friendliness he had been showing as strange and suspicious right from the beginning. And it seemed she was right. Now the resistance fighter would show his true character. She should have known that the Resistance people, always bothering everyone with their ideas of "freedom" and "justice" but instead just causing chaos and mayhem in the universe, would also never hesitate to use all known methods to get what they wanted. Poe noticed her hesitation and her glare. Then it clicked in his brain and he started to laugh about his own silly phrase. "Don't get it wrong. Your clothes are soaked from you lying in the snow. If you keep them on, you will freeze as soon when it gets dark. Even inside here." He stepped out of the flight suit, revealing the uniform he was wearing underneath, and handed the orange cloth to her. "Put that on and take one of the furs on your right. It will keep you warm until your clothes dried. I'll go and get some more firewood," he told her and left the cave before she could protest.

When he returned, Alex was sitting close to the fire wearing the orange suit that was too big for her petite frame and covered with both furs, rubbing her hands furiously to warm them up. Poe dropped the firewood in one corner of the cave and sat down opposite of her. "Never thought it would go with that hair-colour, but orange suits you Alex." For that he got a glare from the other pilot. "Shut up." "It was just an observation. No offense." "You definitely talk too much." Poe grinned. "Sometimes I do. Especially when I am bored. You'll have to live with that," he told her. "I could try to gag you." He raised his eyebrows and chuckled. "You can hardly walk. How do you think you'd be able to grab and gag me, Alex?", the pilot asked amused. "Never underestimate the First Order." "Whatever you say," he replied with a smile. "Do you want me to have a look at your leg?" "No. I'm fine." The dark haired man smiled again. "You're a feisty one. You know it will only get worse." "I can deal with that."

Before she could protest, Poe stood up and sat down right next to her, grabbing her injured leg. She winced at the pain from the sudden movement. Deciding that protest was useless, AN-3527 closed her eyes. The resistance pilot nodded and cautiously removed the bandage from her leg to look at it. The flesh wound, probably caused by a small part of debris, at least had not gotten worse. In general it did not look that bad at all, because it was not that deep. So it would surely not be the main cause for her trouble walking. He softly touched her leg and tried to feel if there was a fracture somewhere. "Your leg does not feel broken," he concluded. When she winced the moment he touched her ankle, he found the solution. "I guess you have some torn ligament in the ankle," he told her "I will try to build you something to stabilize it." She opened her eyes. "That is not necessary." „It is," he responded and stood up to get some wood.

He did not expect her to pull him down surprisingly forceful, throwing him on his back below her with a skilled movement. Then she pressed him onto the floor with her own weight. Although her wrist was injured, she even managed to use his surprise as her chance to grab his hands, move them over his head and press them to the floor. She leaned over him with a triumphant smile and looked into his brown eyes. "I told you to never underestimate the First Order." Poe couldn't help but laugh at that situation. He definitely had underestimated her. First because she was injured and secondly because she did not really look like she was any threat to him.

Then he realized that unlike him, she for sure would not hesitate a second to use his blaster once she got hold of it. And the blaster in question was currently tied to his leg and with that in perfectly reachable distance for her. Luckily, she had not yet noticed how close she was to the gun and with that to his certain death. But that could change any second. So he had to distract her. Poe knew that, although she had managed to get him onto the floor, she was still weakened by her injuries. Especially her hand and leg were her weak points. So he decided to move his hands in her firm grip, knowing that at some point holding his hands down would hurt her. He just had to get them into a better position first. He moved his hands within the bounds of possibility and entwined his fingers with hers. She looked down at him confused about what he was doing. Additionally his hands felt surprisingly warm and soft. He gave her a mischievous smile. "So what now Alex?" Poe asked putting on the most irresistible smile he was capable of, softly stroking her fingers with his.

She did not answer and just continued to look at him. In her mind she already was figuring out which way of torturing him would be the best to get that look off his face. If she had been in a better physical condition, he would already be dead. Earlier at the fire she had even been thinking about not killing him, because he seemed to be of use for her. But now she was prepared to dismiss that idea. Before she could put her plan of torturing and then killing him into practice, Poe had finally reached a good angle for his hand and pushed her left hand right into the direction where it had to hurt her. And he had been right. She flinched at the sudden pain and loosened the grip. The pilot used that to free his hands, grab her by the hip to forcefully turn them around, so he was now hovering over the swearing woman. "I could never underestimate you, Alex. I know perfectly well what you are capable of. But you should not underestimate me either. I could do anything I want with you in your current state," he told her with a smug face. Much to his surprise that did not really work as she started to laugh. "So you are not only a bad liar. Your skills in threatening someone are just as bad. Why should I think that you will start with it now? You had several opportunities to do so before and haven't done anything, Poe. Instead you saved me twice," she replied. He smiled at her, let go and got up and went back to the fire. "That's right. Because I think on this planet it's not about the resistance or the First Order, Alex," he then told her when he sat back down at the fire "On this shithole of a planet, there is only you and me." Alex sat up, holding her hurting wrist. "So, here is the deal. We both don't want to stay on this godforsaken planet and return home. So I suggest we make a truce."