Of course that's where Poe is - he should have looked in the hargar first, instead of at mess, but he'd been hungry anyway so it had served two purposes. When he identifies BB-8 at a distance, he waves to get their attention.
"Hey BB-8! Poe, everything going all right?" It looks like nobody is worried, but what does he know about fighter maintenance?
"Hey, Finn!" Well, this is an unexpected pleasure, and Poe unabashedly grins. He knows FInn's been kept really busy lately, after all. "Yeah, everything's green here. You doing okay?"
"Yeah. It's pretty good here." In fact, the option to leave had been presented to him - transport to anywhere he wanted - but he had a suspicion General Organa had only offered it to him because she knew he'd refuse. Even so, it means something that he's here by choice, because it's what he wants to do.
His face falls as he recalls why he'd come here, though. "Except, I'm really sorry, Poe. I can't find your--my jacket anywhere." And given the state his back was in? He grimaces. "I think it got messed up when I was on Starkiller base. I'm sorry."
Poe just kind of stares at him for a moment. "It got messed up because that crazed wannabe Sith Lord tried to kill you." How does that equal to an apology. "Anyway, I've got a surprise for you. Come on."
He straightens, scrubbing grease-stained hands on his already smudged jumpsuit out of habit. "Gotta go back to my room. That's where it is. The surprise, I mean."
Well, yes, but it was still equipment assigned to him, and Phasma never took 'Kylo Ren did it' as an excuse. But before he can explain, Poe cuts him off and Finn nods.
"Sure, Poe. You coming too, BB-8?"
(Are you kidding? Your expression is going to be priceless!) the droid chirps, rolling out excitedly and confirming with a headbob to Poe.
Finn isn't sure where Poe's room is, so he's ready to follow.
Poe laughs and shakes a finger a BB-8. His droid has such an excellent sense of humor. They're pretty well-matched when it comes to that.
He leads Finn through the maze of corridors that comprise the base, into the more protected areas where the living quarters are, dug down into the ground. One nice thing about being a commander is that he's got a room to himself, while most of the pilots have been having to go with bunks. He feels a little guilty about it sometimes, but then Jess or Kare give him one of those looks and he shuts up before he says something really stupid.
"Okay, here we go..." The room's little better than a closet anyway, just big enough for a bed and a standing crate that doubles as a wardrobe. He opens that and digs the surprise out of the back, turning with a flourish to offer to to Finn: "Tah dah!"
It's the coat. Well. Most of it. The back had to be completely replaced. But it seemed important to keep as much of the old coat as he could.
He's impressed enough with the room as it is - even a tiny closet is more privacy than Finn's used to. He doesn't doubt Poe's earned it, having seen him in action; it's one thing to call yourself a great pilot but something entirely different to be given the title by a war hero like General Organa.
Finn gasps when he sees the jacket, though, taken by complete surprise. BB-8 bubbles with laughter. "How did you--Poe!" He grabs the jacket so he can look it over, grinning happily and running his hands over the new padding on the back. "You fixed it."
So much happiness just makes Poe grin all the harder. "Well, it was still on you when you came in." When what was left of Finn came in. Well, Finn was all in one piece now and just fine, so he could stop thinking about that, thanks. "Kare does leatherworking as a hobby, so we're both lucky. She fixed is up. So. Uh. I owe her a lot of drinks. And so do you."
There's nothing but to try it on, and wouldn't you know it fits just fine. Finn just beams and spontaneously grasps Poe in a quck hug. "You got it. All the drinks I can get my hands on. Do we have to smuggle them in?" He should probably let go, so he does, but his grin doesn't die down.
Okay, the grin was enough of a reward, but the hug's a nice bonus, however quick. "What? No. Just can't drink on duty. But next time we hit the cantina, you get to buy. And then I get to buy. And then you get to buy some more."
"You got it, Poe." Actually, he's not entirely sure what to do with his salary, since credits didn't come a Stormtrooper's way very often if at all. He's pretty sure blowing it all on the pilots isn't a valid long-term investment, but a week's wages are a small price to pay for the first present he's ever had.
"You just tell me when. I've got a couple days off every week."
"Well, drinking's got to wait until we're not on high alert. Sadly." Because they have to all be ready to go out at a moment's notice; no regular leave for now. "So you can just save it up for a real blow out good time. We'll hit Yavin or something and really show you a good time."
He nods, businesslike; makes sense to him. Finn knows now they lost enough pilots at Starkiller Base to make each of them indispensible until some more backups could come online - even if the ranks were swelling exponentially after the destruction of the Senate. There are a lot more ground troops, so he at least is on a mostly-regular schedule.
But if Poe gets called somewhere, Finn wants to follow as his backup if he can.
"I was hoping you wouldn't mind if I tagged along next time you got leave," he admits. "I don't have that many friends here yet." Poe does, of course. He's as popular as anyone would expect.
Poe has been planning to ask him, anyway; the thought of not hasn't even occurred to him. "What? Of course!" He claps Finn on the shoulder. "But that's not tagging along. That's buddies going on leave together. That's how it works!"
He's surprised Finn doesn't have more friends already, in the ground troops. He's wondered if Finn might move on, but he's glad he hasn't... even if him having more friends would probably be good.
Part of it's shyness - he knows he's the Stormtrooper, everybody knows that, and it does set him apart no matter how much General Organa likes him. Or maybe it's that the General has singled him out, or that the story about Rey's rescue grew in the telling. Either way, the squad he's assigned to likes him well enough but he's found it tough to make friends outside that.
And it's not even that he's never had buddies before. His grin gets a little sheepish. "We had downtime, but we never really had leave. You know? So I don't know if that's how it works or not."
"Never had leave..." Well, of course if he steps back and thinks about it, that makes sense. But it's one of those things where he probably wouldn't have realized if Finn hadn't pointed it out, and he feels a little stupid for that.
He can't help it, he rests his hand on Finn's shoulder again. Tempting to hug him, but he's trying to be careful, respectful, all of that. He just got a big reminder that Finn hasn't exactly had a normal life; stuff Poe thinks is casual might not be for him. "Well. We'll just have to make your first real leave great when it rolls around."
"Nope." Too many uncontrollable factors. If they'd let Stormtroopers out of their direct control for longer than the course of a mission, there would have been reconditioning for everyone involved. And why recondition when they could just avoid the need in the first place?
So Poe's assurance that Finn would be welcome with his friends is welcome, and he doesn't seem to react to the moment of awkwardness there; he's in a very different life now, and it's far from the first difference he's seen. "I'll check on when that is." That protocol droid guy should be able to tell him; Finn had never met anyone so full of extraneous information, even given that he doesn't know many droids. "And hope your squad's off high alert before then. I can wait, if not."
"Yeah. Though that's all under the control of the First Order," Poe says, snorting. If the First Order stop being bastards, the hard-working pilots like himself can at least risk being off the line for 24 to 48 hours.
He could really use a break, if he's being honest. Going nonstop isn't so hard, but he's got a backlog of mental crap he just needs to sit down and sort through, and there's no breathing room for it. If they weren't on high alert he'd already have checked himself out for a mental health weekend; his parents had never been keen on talking about their troubles or war stories (he wonders now how many of those were one and the same) but they'd made sure he didn't have any mental baggage about needing to keep himself on an even keel. You keep going til you break, and it only hurts other people.
"And same for me," he promises. "If you're out on a mission, I can put off leave until you're back. Wouldn't be the same without you." Even though they've never gone on leave together, even though they're just friends, he already knows that's true.
Finn looks very thoughtful for a moment. In fact, he's surprised they've been active enough to keep the pilots on their toes in the wake of Starkiller Base's destruction, and then it hits him. Of course. "Standard protocol. First thirty after a disaster all patrols increase and we're--they're--all on time and a half. Next thirty days they drop to normal, then three-quarters until the problem's resolved. It's all smoke and mirrors. They're not going to risk anything till they can recover."
"That so..." Poe says. Well, he'd sure like it to be so. "I think you better tell the General that. I'm surprised she didn't pick it out of your brain already." But considering how much General Organa probably had grilled out of Finn, he's sure things that aren't immediate threats got lost in the shuffle.
"Maybe we'll get some down time sooner than I thought. That'd be great."
"I didn't think of it till now," Finn admits. Because he'd been too busy to really sit down and talk with Poe, so he didn't realize the pilots were on high alert. "I'll let her know first thing."
But instead of rushing off to tell the General, Finn gives his friend a grin. "If things do get too hot and I'm on a mission before then, you'll be my air support, won't you?" It's probably not going to happen, except for a training simulation, for the very reason he gave before. But the idea of Poe being his air support is one he could get behind; he's getting kind of used to having a real ace pilot backing him up.
"Great." Hopefully that means Finn's also getting more used to dealing with General Organa. Not that Poe's ever become that blase about it, more that he hasn't had time lately to really contemplate the fact that he's working for her.
"There's nothing in the galaxy that would keep me away," he says. And he means it; he's disobeyed orders before and hasn't ever regretted a judgment he's made under that much pressure. Maybe he's just been lucky, but he'll keep trusting his instincts; they're the same ones that told him to trust Finn in the first place, after all. "Be like Takodana all over again."
It's not that he isn't in awe of her, because there's still a part of him that wonders if this isn't all some kind of fever dream his brain had cooked up back on Jakku. But there's something about General Organa that puts him at ease - her charisma? She has that in spades. It's more that he feels like she can be trusted, something that's not based on her history or her presence or the respect everyone else trusts her with. Something deeper, like how he knew he could trust Poe and Rey. How he knew he could trust Solo, and how he knows Rey is fine even now.
So his grin widens and he reaches out to grab Poe's shoulder again. "You're a good man, Poe Dameron. And I got your back on the ground. You too, BB-8." Because droid or not, BB is his friend too.
"I know, buddy." One of those things, he supposes. He's hoping to never get captured again, it was awful the first time around. But a second round would be slightly less horrible because he'd know Finn would be coming to get him out again.
He's really, really hoping to never test that though. Once was more than enough for a hundred lifetimes, even what had come out of it had been for the better for everyone.
Finn's got his shoulder; he's not really thinking too hard about it when he grabs Finn's opposite shoulder. Not quite a hug, but something like it. Damn, but Finn looks good, wearing that jacket again. It's not really Poe's any more, but he can't help think about it that way. And maybe he gets a little thrill from thinking about it sitting against Finn's skin, but he's keeping that to himself.
He gives Finn's shoulder a little shake and opens his mouth to say... something. He's not sure what, but it's probably going to be dumb. And it's probably for the best that an alert sound through the base at that moment, even if it makes him jump because it's the last place his mind could be. "Sounds like the band's playing our song," he says, glancing at BB-8. How's a droid manage to look that smug? And about what? "We better run."
If Finn has anything to say about it, none of his friends will ever be in that situation again - even if he is two for two on rescuing them now. Huh. Well, Rey had mostly rescued herself anyway, and all he did for Poe was get him to a ship and run guns. But if General Organa thinks that was enough (and she does; she'd said so several times), then that's good enough for him.
Naturally, the alarm goes off when he's finally getting to getting to spend some time with Poe. Naturally. So he nods and flashes one more rueful grin at Poe and BB-8. "I'll see you again when you get back, Black Leader." And he'll find time to give the General his opinion on the increased First Order activity. Yeah, they have to treat every alarm as a full-scale threat, but the sooner he can share his intel with her the sooner they can plan leave for the overworked pilots. Poe looks like he could use a break.
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"Hey BB-8! Poe, everything going all right?" It looks like nobody is worried, but what does he know about fighter maintenance?
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His face falls as he recalls why he'd come here, though. "Except, I'm really sorry, Poe. I can't find your--my jacket anywhere." And given the state his back was in? He grimaces. "I think it got messed up when I was on Starkiller base. I'm sorry."
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He straightens, scrubbing grease-stained hands on his already smudged jumpsuit out of habit. "Gotta go back to my room. That's where it is. The surprise, I mean."
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"Sure, Poe. You coming too, BB-8?"
(Are you kidding? Your expression is going to be priceless!) the droid chirps, rolling out excitedly and confirming with a headbob to Poe.
Finn isn't sure where Poe's room is, so he's ready to follow.
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He leads Finn through the maze of corridors that comprise the base, into the more protected areas where the living quarters are, dug down into the ground. One nice thing about being a commander is that he's got a room to himself, while most of the pilots have been having to go with bunks. He feels a little guilty about it sometimes, but then Jess or Kare give him one of those looks and he shuts up before he says something really stupid.
"Okay, here we go..." The room's little better than a closet anyway, just big enough for a bed and a standing crate that doubles as a wardrobe. He opens that and digs the surprise out of the back, turning with a flourish to offer to to Finn: "Tah dah!"
It's the coat. Well. Most of it. The back had to be completely replaced. But it seemed important to keep as much of the old coat as he could.
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Finn gasps when he sees the jacket, though, taken by complete surprise. BB-8 bubbles with laughter. "How did you--Poe!" He grabs the jacket so he can look it over, grinning happily and running his hands over the new padding on the back. "You fixed it."
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"This is great, Poe. The best. Thanks a lot."
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"You just tell me when. I've got a couple days off every week."
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But if Poe gets called somewhere, Finn wants to follow as his backup if he can.
"I was hoping you wouldn't mind if I tagged along next time you got leave," he admits. "I don't have that many friends here yet." Poe does, of course. He's as popular as anyone would expect.
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He's surprised Finn doesn't have more friends already, in the ground troops. He's wondered if Finn might move on, but he's glad he hasn't... even if him having more friends would probably be good.
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And it's not even that he's never had buddies before. His grin gets a little sheepish. "We had downtime, but we never really had leave. You know? So I don't know if that's how it works or not."
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He can't help it, he rests his hand on Finn's shoulder again. Tempting to hug him, but he's trying to be careful, respectful, all of that. He just got a big reminder that Finn hasn't exactly had a normal life; stuff Poe thinks is casual might not be for him. "Well. We'll just have to make your first real leave great when it rolls around."
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So Poe's assurance that Finn would be welcome with his friends is welcome, and he doesn't seem to react to the moment of awkwardness there; he's in a very different life now, and it's far from the first difference he's seen. "I'll check on when that is." That protocol droid guy should be able to tell him; Finn had never met anyone so full of extraneous information, even given that he doesn't know many droids. "And hope your squad's off high alert before then. I can wait, if not."
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He could really use a break, if he's being honest. Going nonstop isn't so hard, but he's got a backlog of mental crap he just needs to sit down and sort through, and there's no breathing room for it. If they weren't on high alert he'd already have checked himself out for a mental health weekend; his parents had never been keen on talking about their troubles or war stories (he wonders now how many of those were one and the same) but they'd made sure he didn't have any mental baggage about needing to keep himself on an even keel. You keep going til you break, and it only hurts other people.
"And same for me," he promises. "If you're out on a mission, I can put off leave until you're back. Wouldn't be the same without you." Even though they've never gone on leave together, even though they're just friends, he already knows that's true.
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"Maybe we'll get some down time sooner than I thought. That'd be great."
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But instead of rushing off to tell the General, Finn gives his friend a grin. "If things do get too hot and I'm on a mission before then, you'll be my air support, won't you?" It's probably not going to happen, except for a training simulation, for the very reason he gave before. But the idea of Poe being his air support is one he could get behind; he's getting kind of used to having a real ace pilot backing him up.
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"There's nothing in the galaxy that would keep me away," he says. And he means it; he's disobeyed orders before and hasn't ever regretted a judgment he's made under that much pressure. Maybe he's just been lucky, but he'll keep trusting his instincts; they're the same ones that told him to trust Finn in the first place, after all. "Be like Takodana all over again."
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So his grin widens and he reaches out to grab Poe's shoulder again. "You're a good man, Poe Dameron. And I got your back on the ground. You too, BB-8." Because droid or not, BB is his friend too.
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He's really, really hoping to never test that though. Once was more than enough for a hundred lifetimes, even what had come out of it had been for the better for everyone.
Finn's got his shoulder; he's not really thinking too hard about it when he grabs Finn's opposite shoulder. Not quite a hug, but something like it. Damn, but Finn looks good, wearing that jacket again. It's not really Poe's any more, but he can't help think about it that way. And maybe he gets a little thrill from thinking about it sitting against Finn's skin, but he's keeping that to himself.
He gives Finn's shoulder a little shake and opens his mouth to say... something. He's not sure what, but it's probably going to be dumb. And it's probably for the best that an alert sound through the base at that moment, even if it makes him jump because it's the last place his mind could be. "Sounds like the band's playing our song," he says, glancing at BB-8. How's a droid manage to look that smug? And about what? "We better run."
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Naturally, the alarm goes off when he's finally getting to getting to spend some time with Poe. Naturally. So he nods and flashes one more rueful grin at Poe and BB-8. "I'll see you again when you get back, Black Leader." And he'll find time to give the General his opinion on the increased First Order activity. Yeah, they have to treat every alarm as a full-scale threat, but the sooner he can share his intel with her the sooner they can plan leave for the overworked pilots. Poe looks like he could use a break.
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