I am sorry! If you don't want to read this chapter, don't. But let me tell you: it's going to be rough and don't read if this affects you!

Chapter 11

Deserving

Hux didn't need her anymore.

That was what Poe had gathered from the final lines of the report on Shara Bey. It had been Kafr's orders that had kept her alive these last thirty years. Somehow… somehow she had survived imprisonment and hard labour on the First Order's bases until somehow she had caught Hux's attention… probably because of Poe… because Poe had become someone noticeable in Hux's eyes. But unlike Kafr, Hux didn't seem to see any value in her or her labour. Why would he? She was old. Too old to be worth anything to the Order anymore.

Shaking from head to foot, Poe stood upright, his eyes trained on the tips of his boots. And then they started moving. He watched his feet carry him forward. To the door. Automatically his hand reached for the command cap resting on the desk. He didn't even realize as he put it on and, heart thumping wildly in his chest, made his way towards the elevators.

He was numb. Numb and incapable of forming a coherent thought. The corridors he passed through seemed familiar enough, but he didn't take them in. Not even in the slightest. Images were flashing before his eyes. Images and memories crashing in on him. Things he couldn't quite place. A tree. The feeling of arms around him. The smell of something he only barely remembered. And something else… hot tears streaming down his face as he was shouting himself hoarse. Screaming. Crying. For someone he'd never see again.

Breathing heavily, Poe ducked into a nearby servicing corridor to lean against the wall. Closing his eyes, he told himself that he needed to calm down. He needed to focus. He couldn't start breaking down in the open. Doing so would only worsen his situation. With a barely suppressed scream of frustration he punched the wall across from him. His mother wasn't dead. She had been alive ever since they had been separated all those years ago… by Kafr… the man Poe had always considered a friend, when he had been nothing but an example to be set for Kafr.

The world seemed to be swimming before him and Poe forced back the tears with all his might. He wiped his face, getting rid of the treacherous traces of grief he wasn't supposed to be feeling. Looking to his right, he saw the wider corridor he had just left. He was in the detention block… somehow he had made his way here. To where she was being held. To where she was going to die. She was expendable to Hux. And to him? Poe didn't know. How could she not be? He didn't know her. Why had seeing her affected him this much? Why was he hurting like this?

Kafr, he told himself. It was Kafr… the feeling of being nothing but a piece of amusement to the late General. Something to play around with and to be influenced… Poe had had no choice. No say in the matter. But of course he had known this before. That being part of the Order was nothing but coincidence and that he had to fit in or die. That had always been clear to him. Somehow….

This was more… so much more… and he had to keep moving if he wanted to see her. At least once. But… did he? Not really, he realized, but he knew that if he didn't even attempt to see her, the image of her tear-streaked face would be stuck in his head for as long as he lived and those screams would echo through his mind every time he tried falling asleep. Even now that they were stored safely on that datacard in his room, he could hear them. High-pitched. Not human. But his mother's voice anyway. That voice which he could remember humming a soft melody.

A memory…

No lyrics… just the melody pounding behind his forehead overlaying the screams freezing him in place even now.

Giving himself another minute to breathe, Poe shivered and then moved on to adjusting his command cap and for a brief moment, he wondered whether he even looked presentable… but that didn't matter now. Time was running out. He had had less than half an hour when he had read the file. They were probably on their way… had removed her from her cell…

Just as he rounded the corner of the intersection, heart pounding in his chest, he saw the four Stormtroopers walking in his direction along the corridor leading towards the execution chamber. And there she was! It had to be her!

Poe's breath caught in his chest as he laid eyes on her. At the woman right in the middle of her Stormtrooper escort, her grey hair short, her face wrinkled and had he seen her any other day, at any other time, he would not have recognized her. But this was her. It had to be. The defiant look in her eyes and the shape of her nose more than the other thing he knew for certain: no one else was scheduled to be executed today.

His throat was tight, as he took a step forward, blocking the Stormtroopers' path, never taking his eyes off the woman in their middle. The Troopers stood still. He could feel their eyes trained on him, but he didn't say anything. Not a word, not a sound passed his lips as his eyes started to burn. He felt like he was choking already. Choking on emotions he had no name for. Like he was being suffocated by the sheer weight of them.

Her dark brown eyes, so much like his own, returned his gaze but like his they remained dry. Her lips were parched. Cracked. He could even see a thin, smudged streak of blood on her chin. Had they beaten her? Why? She was about to die anyway, wasn't she?

A sudden, violent surge of tenderness was threatening to overwhelm him, as he looked into that face and recognized it as his own. His fingers were twitching with the need to touch her cheek, but he couldn't. Of course he couldn't. Not only were there at least four pairs of eyes watching him, but she was also the woman who had risked her son's life following her own desire for adventure and revenge. It was her own fault she was here, he reminded himself, but still he couldn't step aside and let these Troopers sweep her away. Not now. Not now that he felt like all his limbs had grown numb.

"Sir?" One of the Troopers asked. He immediately recognized Finn's voice, but there was no way he could react to that right now.

"Are you him?" She asked, her voice hoarse, but he didn't even listen to her words. All he could focus on was the sound of them. The low, soft sound he suddenly remembered. The voice which had sung to him. Traces of melodies suddenly rushing through his mind again. He took half a step back, regretting doing so at the same time.

He closed his hands, digging his fingernails into his palms to stop them from shaking.

"Poe?" Her eyes remained dry, but he could see the faint sparkle in them. It, combined with the barely visible smile stretching across her aged face, tore at everything he was, making his knees almost give way.

He opened his mouth, trying to say something, anything, but all he was able to bring out was an unarticulated sound.

"Dameron!"

Poe flinched, turned his head, unable to spin on his heel to follow the unspoken order hidden in that own name. He blinked, realizing only now that he hadn't done so in over a minute, only to find Hux not five feet away from him. He hadn't even heard the noise of the door to the room in which Hux had been open.

"What are you doing here, Colonel?" Hux walked towards him, nostrils flaring and it took Poe all the willpower he had to turn around to face him.

"Sir?" he croaked. Closing his lips and clasping his hands behind his back, he squared his shoulders. His mother's eyes were fixed upon him.

He knew it.

He felt them.

Felt their gaze echoing through the marrow of his bones. Their shock. Their disappointment.

One single drop of sweat trickled down his spine, making him shiver as he returned Hux's stare.

"How did you know?" Hux didn't even ask if Poe knew who the woman behind him, standing between the Stormtroopers was. He must know.

"I saw the note, Sir," Poe said, his voice stronger now, but still low. "I wanted to… to see it for myself." What else was he to do? What was he to say? There was nothing. Nothing he could do, he realized.

Nothing to save her life.

And he wanted to.

Never before had he wanted anything so much. But he was so powerless. As powerless as he had always been, but only at this precise moment in which he had to tell Hux this outright lie, did he realize it. He didn't know her. He had resented her all his life. Had hated her to some extent even. But she looked like him! Nothing but this very thought, in which so many other things came together, things he couldn't even begin to comprehend, made him realize that none of it mattered.

"You did?" Hux raised his eyebrows and snorted briefly, looking Poe up and down. "Very well. Shall we?" He pointed invitingly at the door he had just vacated and Poe saw Meelan standing there, white as a sheet. Meelan, he now realized, hadn't intended for this to happen. But it had. And right now, Poe couldn't even think about it.

Shaking slightly, he turned around once more, staring his mother straight in the face. She had been beautiful once, he realized, remembering the soft touch of her lips on his forehead and her arms wrapped tightly around him after he had woken from a horrible nightmare. And then there was that one image in his head. That of the broken woman in the torture chair appearing like so much more than the person standing in front of him now. Like someone infinitely more important and more meaningful than any mental image of her that had stayed with him over the years.

"Don't worry, Poe…" she whispered, making him flinch, as she reached for him, her hands bound by cuffs she must have been wearing for a long time. Her wrists, he saw, were bruised. Bleeding even. Fully aware that Hux was watching him, he couldn't even reach out to her. It was out of his hands. All of it. There was nothing for him to do, but feel her fingertips brush against his cheek, before one of the Stormtroopers pushed her forward, making her stumble and fall right against his chest. Finn… Finn had done it…

Poe didn't even look up, as he swiftly, as if in reflex, put his arms around her to catch her. She was as light as a feather, her short hair rough against his chin, as he, as if by accident, brushed his lips along her temple, before putting her back on her feet and taking a step back, opening up the path he had been blocking before. What else was he to do.

He could still feel her gaze upon him, could still smell the faint scent of her, as the Stormtroopers forced her to move. Poe pressed up against the wall, telling himself not to follow her with his gaze. Hux was there… waiting for him. And he had to join him. Had to join Hux and watch it happen, when all he wanted to do was curl up in bed and forget this day ever happened. He had barely ever wanted to do anything else.

Doing his best to hide his trembling hands, Poe followed Hux into the room, fighting the nearly overwhelming urge to run and hide from whatever was going to happen next. It was as if every breath he took was just as futile as the one before. Like no oxygen could possibly make its way past this giant void of nothingness to his brain. The barren room barely even registered. All he saw was the wide window providing the overview over the white room below. Poe felt his stomach tighten as he saw the table in the middle.

"I am surprised you have come here, Colonel," he heard Hux say and forced himself to turn his head ever so slightly.

"Sir?"

Hux shrugged, an expression on his face Poe couldn't even begin to read, but felt the sudden wish to wipe away with a well-aimed punch. Behind Hux he could see Meelan shaking his head ever so slightly. For a moment, Poe felt a biting retort clawing its way out his throat and managed to hold himself back with all the strength he could muster. He had to keep up appearances, even if every second he remained here was already tugging violently at every fibre of his being.

"I'm just saying that I hadn't expected you to turn up here. You saw the note and decided to come here? Just like that? Have you talked to your mother recently, Colonel?"

Poe suppressed a low grunt and clasped his hands firmly behind his back. The world seemed to be spinning around him. He needed to stay alert! To remain on his feet and prove to Hux that he was stronger than this. That he didn't care. Or else… the consequences were unthinkable. And yet he was already shaking, uncertain of how he was going to get through this. Even if she had abandoned him. Even if she was nothing but a rebel who had risked her son's life like she had… Poe couldn't help but think of the woman he had just seen as someone who should have been close to her… someone who had suffered because of him and that very thought was enough to make him want to crumble to the floor. To beg Hux for mercy for his mother. But Hux would never concede. Why would he? "Of course I haven't," Poe said, his voice flat. Void of any trace of emotion. How he managed it he didn't know. "I only found out about her execution half an hour ago." He turned back towards the window. He was standing so close to it that for a moment he wondered whether his breath would manage to fog it over and block his view… no such luck.

He felt every single heartbeat like a drum pounding in his chest. Like it was going to break his ribs and press every single bit of food he had had this day back up his throat with every single natural pumping of blood.

"Very well." Was there a resigned sort of undertone lingering in these two words? Sympathy? Poe didn't know, but he also didn't want to turn around and look.

He heard someone approach him, but he didn't turn his head, afraid of seeing Hux, but apparently Hux had decided to remain in the back section of the room. From the corner of his eye, Poe saw Meelan, eyes focused on the table, but still there and Poe couldn't help but acknowledge that it was for his own personal benefit that Meelan had stepped up to stand here next to him. Even if more than three metres were separating them, there he was. At his side. Not looking at him, but there anyway. And then the door below slid open and he could see her again. He clasped his hands even more firmly to not only suppress the shaking but also to keep them from reaching up to touch the glass. He had never felt so helpless in his life. Not even on Jakku, when he had thought he was going to die… here there was not even the one permanent hiding place left for him. His breathing picked up, as she looked up and he realized the window was actually see through. She could see him!

There was a softness in her eyes he hadn't expected there. A softness he didn't feel he deserved and which was slowly but surely starting a fire in his chest nothing would ever be able to quench. A fire gnawing at his heart and something less tangible. Something less physical than that lump of flesh burning away in his chest.

He held his breath, as he saw the medics dressed in their white grey uniforms approach her. He hadn't even really seen the two Stormtroopers flanking her. Not until they lifted her onto the table and she didn't even resist. Already his eyes were pinching. Burning. His vision blurring, but he couldn't close them. Somehow he felt like he owed it to her to watch. If he wasn't able to do anything else, watching her, being there was all he had left to give her even if she didn't deserve it. Deserve… what did she deserve?

Not this, a soft voice in his mind whispered and he pushed it away as quickly as possible. He couldn't afford to waste energy on thinking now. Not now that she needed him to see.

She was calm. Seemingly detached from everything else. From the Stormtroopers putting binders on her wrists and ankle. From what was about to happen to her.

His throat was so tight like it was determined to never let him breathe again, as he held his mother's gaze, doing everything in his power to make his face seem as impassive as possible, while on the inside he felt like everything, every little step he had taken since he had been parted from his mother was being taken away from him. Like he was shrinking. Growing ever younger. Fading into helplessness.

"We're ready, Sir." The voice coming over the speaker was the same voice he had heard when he had been in the infirmary. The medic who had taken care of him.

A short silence, then Hux cleared his throat. "Proceed." Poe didn't turn around to look at him, but at this precise moment Hux surprised him. He didn't sound as cold as usual, Poe thought, when the impact of that single word reached him.

He pressed his lips tightly together, as he looked into those brown eyes surrounded by wrinkles and dry skin and he thought of how much he didn't know of the woman lying on the table down there. Of how much she was supposed to mean to him and how little she actually did. Not at this moment. At this precise moment as her lips formed this one word, his name, unintelligible through the glass and the distance between them, his vision blurred once again. This time he didn't blink. Not for a second, forcing himself to give her the one thing he could: his attention. Being there for her when no one else was. As the tears flowed down his cheeks, leaving a white-hot burning trail on his skin, he felt eyes on him, but he couldn't be sure if they were Hux's or Meelan's.

He saw the doctor approach his mother, the syringe in hand, filled with the very substance that would end her life, but she didn't even look up. There was a smile on her parched lips. A smile he hadn't expected there and that one motion was enough to make him want to pound his fists against the glass, scream, fight, do everything he could to save her even if it meant throwing himself in the line of fire.

But he didn't. He remained motionless. His eyes dry. Unable to breathe. Unable to move. All he could do was stand there and watch as the life slowly drained out of those eyes that were trying to tell him something he couldn't grasp. Something out of reach and yet tangible in a way few things had ever been. He could see her breathing, as tears shot to her eyes, just a second before they broke and Poe felt as if something irreplaceable was ripped from him. Something he hadn't even known existed until this moment it left him, just like that.

From one moment to the next all he could see was a woman he had no connection to whatsoever lying there in the execution chamber.

Boots clanking on the floor breaking the silence was all his brain registered. That body just lying there was alien to him. As alien as was the concept of having a mother. A mother he had just lost without having had her.

"You shouldn't have been here, Dameron." Hux's voice was firm, cutting through every fibre of his body. He still didn't move. If he turned his head even slightly, Hux would see the trail of tears on his skin and that couldn't happen. Luckily Hux didn't wait for an answer, not in any way. "Take the rest of the day off, Dameron. Tomorrow as well. Take the Colonel back to his quarters, Major."

Those boots again and then there was silence. Silence as the medic approached the table in the other room and pulled a black sheet over Shara Bey's lifeless form, which would now be burned, her ashes disposed of.

Poe tried swallowing, but nothing except for a dry, forced clicking sound happened in his throat. He couldn't even see her face anymore. Wouldn't be allowed to touch her. To say goodbye.

"Let's go." Meelan's voice was infinitely softer than Hux's had been and the touch of his hand on Poe's arm almost comforting. Comforting enough that Poe didn't protest, as Meelan gently pushed him towards the door. It was as if he had lost the will to move on his own, just obeying when he should be screaming. When all he was, was nothing but an empty shell and when he should be so much more.

Only when Meelan relinquished his grip on his arm, did Poe realize that Meelan had still guided him on their way and only then, as he felt all tension leave his arm and all purpose leave his body, did he realize that they had already entered the corridor in which his quarters where situated. He didn't even remember having come here.

"Why did you give me that datacard?" He sounded more accusing than he wanted to. He should be thankful to Meelan for doing it, but somehow… somehow all he felt was emptiness sucking him in like a black hole, ready to crush him into something that could never be put right again.

He turned his head slightly as Meelan shrugged, eyes trained on the floor. "You deserved to know," Meelan answered.

"I-" Poe cut himself off, clutching his hands into fists. Did he deserve to know? Did he deserve to know that he hadn't been alone after all? That there had at least been a chance of him having a family? Even if it was so very slim? He'd have had to stand up against the Order. Against General Kafr. Against Meelan. Everything and everyone that had shaped and been his life and even then he couldn't have been sure that being with his mother had been the right thing to do. And now that chance had passed him by and he hadn't had a chance of finding out anything… he pressed his lips tightly together. Did he deserve this? How big his offence had been… failing Snoke had cost him even this one chance he never could have had anyway. "How did you know?" He asked again, his voice hoarse, on the verge of breaking. "Why were you even there?" The question only came to him now. Now that he realised that a communications officer had no business witnessing the execution of a lowly worker. And neither did General Hux. Not unless…

"I was her interrogator." Meelan answered curtly and meeting Poe's eyes now. His brows were furrowed, his gaze colder than Poe had ever seen them. "I figured you'd like to know that she wasn't dead after all but put to justice now."

"Interrogator…" Poe breathed, realizing full well what this single word entailed…. Meelan had tortured her. Had put her into one of those chairs again… had made her scream. Had forced things out of her she wouldn't give away willingly. "Why?" He could barely hear his own voice.

Meelan scoffed, as if Poe's question was completely out of line. Something was off. Something had shifted. Like a rift separating them all of a sudden. "There was an uprising planned among the workers," Meelan said. "It was detected before any plans could be put into action luckily. She was the ringleader." That hadn't been in the file… of course it hadn't. The Order didn't want to encourage uprisings by even suggesting that one might have been planned from their own ranks.

"And you believe that?!" Poe spat, tears suddenly pricking in his eyes again. "You believe that and you give me that datacard where I could see my mother being tortured and you expect me to come to your room? You expect me to drink to the Order after this!?" The words flew out of his mouth before he had even had time to think them over. To hold them back. He stumbled away from Meelan, for once not giving a damn about upholding his mask in front of the surveillance cameras. He was reckless. He knew it. But there was nothing for it. He was hurting. Hurting as badly as he had never done before in his life! Those broken eyes would haunt him forever! Even now they lingered with him. Those eyes and those lips forming a single word. One name. Poe.

Meelan's eyes suddenly had a spark in them Poe had never seen there before. A spark edging him on, threatening to make himself more vulnerable than he was even now. "Why are you still with the Order if you loathe it so much?" he asked with a snarky undertone that made Poe shiver.

"Shut up…" he mumbled, when all he wanted to shout was "I don't know!" Turning his back on Meelan, Poe started moving along the corridor.

"Poe!" Meelan called out to him, but Poe didn't turn around.

"I can't do this right now…" Poe muttered, his voice shaky. "Just-" He bit on his toungue at the last moment, before he could say what he needed to shout: Just fuck off. "- leave me be."

Meelan didn't protest. Didn't give any retort and Poe didn't look back once as he pushed himself to go on and keep moving, feeling like things would never be the same after this.

He wasn't at all surprised when he saw the Stormtrooper standing in front of his door again, just like he had been waiting there one other time. Poe swallowed hard, but didn't say anything else, as he made his way towards the door, jammed in his key code and entered the room. Unable to remain on his feet even one moment longer, he collapsed onto the bed, his head hitting the pillow, not giving a damn about the soldier entering the small room behind him, or about the locking of the door. The datapad was still there. Pushing hard against his stomach.

"So…" Poe mumbled, looking up at Finn, as the other dragged of his helmet just like he had done before and then started peeling off his armour in one motion. Like this was normal. Like he was going to stay. And Poe couldn't fight it. Not now. Not today. "Who talks first? You talk first? I talk first?"

Finn didn't laugh. He didn't even look up, just continued taking off the armour plates and putting them on the desk next to the helmet. "I'm sorry," he said finally, facing Poe again and moving up to him, sitting down at the edge of the bed and tentatively reaching up to stroke Poe's hair. No one had done that in such a long time and Poe closed his eyes, revelling in the touch and the fresh surge of pain that was dulling his thoughts.

"Don't be…" Poe managed a shrug. "She was no one to me."

"Yes, she was." Finn said. "She was your mother…"

Poe's eyes snapped open. "How…?"

Finn shook his head. "You look so much like her…" Finn said quietly, his dark eyes full of sympathy Poe didn't feel he deserved and then the tears were back, burning in his eyes and his nose. Choking him. Clenching his stomach.

Poe fought the sob that shook his entire being without success for another moment no longer. He didn't have the strength. And then there he was. There was Finn. Putting the datapad away. Lying down next to him, pulling Poe into his arms, like it was the most natural thing to do. Him, Poe didn't fight. He was unable to. Unable to do anything but accept the warmth and this something else Finn was offering him.

It felt like hours before Poe was even able to breathe again. Before he could open his eyes. Eyes which felt puffy and sticky and like they wouldn't work again properly for at least a month. But they would… they must… Poe took a shuddering breath, feeling his insides unclench and then tense up again. He couldn't see anything but the dark fabric of Finn's shirt, didn't feel anything but pain and emptiness and those arms holding him together. "I'm sorry about your comrades…" Poe whispered and he felt Finn nod.

"I know."

Poe blinked, trying to get rid of the tears that were forming in his eyes again. "It's just- I…. you…" He pressed his lips together, unable to form another coherent sentence. Finn had never known his parents. Didn't even know their names, or where they had lived, but here he was. With Poe- Poe who owed him so much that he wasn't entirely sure he'd ever be able to pay him back,.

"Shush…" Finn muttered, his breath warm in Poe's hair and his hand at the back of Poe's head. The gesture felt familiar and yet so unbelievably unreal in this particular moment. Deserve this… the phrase rushed through his mind, evoking another gut-wrenching sob, tearing through his entire torso like a vibro blade. Finn's lips on his forehead did nothing to soothe the pain, but everything to let him know that he wasn't alone in this. He wasn't alone. Even after everything…

… he wasn't alone.

Notes:

I'm so sorry for this chapter, which ends a horrible year! I'm sorry for posting it now, but I didn't want to start the new year off with something this sad! Forgive me!