flightforfreedom | A stupid post for stupid threads

He shouldn't be surprised. Poe was excellent when it came to battle plans and leading his men. In anything else, though, it was flying by the seat of their pants at all times. Of course he hadn't called ahead or told the older Dameron Finn was visiting along with with. But he still hovers distinctly behind Poe as the greeting goes on. Remaining a half step behind Poe even as he offered a hand in greeting.

He knew nothing about who Finn was. Add on a suspicious glare and would be just like running around with Rey again. But may as well get it all out.

"We're in the Rebellion together. Sir."

Kes looked at Finn for a half second longer than perhaps was expected, and then clasped Finn's hand tightly, giving it a firm shake.

"Please, call me Kes. Leia told me that you saved my son," he said, his eyes locked on Finn's while he said it. Poe hadn't told him, but Leia was an old friend. She often sent him updates, when Poe couldn't - or wouldn't. "You are very welcome, here. Though I didn't know that you would be coming, so I only set up one ro--"

"He'll stay with me," Poe interrupted quickly, with a smile that was entirely innocent charm.

Kes, seemingly utterly impervious to said charm, glanced at his son a moment before looking back at Finn, with a sympathetic look. "-- Or I can make something up for you. It's no trouble either way."

One call would have had this entire thing settled before hand. A droid with an encrypted message. A droid with a hologram. But no. Still, Finn could manage this. He smile isn't anywhere near as practiced as Poe's, in fact he's not entirely sure is mouth is working right at the moment, it didn't feel like how a smile should. But he was fine.

Right.

"I go where he does. It's fine, s- Kes."

He couldn't shake Poe while staying in another room, anyway.

Kes' own lips curved up to offer Finn a smile - a small one, but something of an understanding one, and he nodded.

"Alright. Hop on in, you t-- No, Poe, I'll drive. After Leia's last report, you will be lucky if I let you even into the front passenger seat."

Poe groaned visibly, but slid into the back. He was going to have to speak to the General about these reports.

Finn stood and watched for a moment as Poe took his seat. May be it was crazy, but after all of Poe's sad smiles and shrugs, he'd expected...different. Not that he had a wide range of experience to build an image from, but for a family that barely spoke everything was relatively peaceful. For now.

Since the injuries were apparently common knowledge, Finn didn't bother trying to hide the fact he made sure Poe was settled in his seat as comfortably as the bandages would allow before sliding into his own seat. In the front.

"Hope it's not a problem. Probably the only time I'll get to ride co-pilot while he's a passenger."

"Not at all," Kes replied as he stepped into the driver's seat.

Poe - with a very good indication of just how exhausted the trip had made him, and probably just proving both his father's and Finn's points - slid against the side, sprawled on the back seat, and almost immediately fell asleep. So there was silence, as the engine revved and the speeder slowly began to make it's way up over the trees.

"So you were a stormtrooper," Kes finally said, looking straight ahead to where here was driving/flying rather than looking over at Finn.

"A very bad one."

It came out quickly, and was helped by the fact it was true. He'd been a fantastic stromtrooper cadet. One of the best. But when push come to shove, he'd been the worst actual stormtrooper in his unit. Even Slip had managed to fire a single shot in combat.

"That is, at the job. Not bad as in evil."

He bit down the urge to say sir again.

That got a glance, an eyebrow raised, before a flicker of a smile - something more similar to Poe's smile, this time, an almost teasing grin - before it disappeared and Kes' eyes returned to the route ahead.

"I'm not going to judge you for your past, Finn. As far as I'm concerned, you've saved my life, too. I won't be able to repay you, so I won't try. But you have my respect."

It should have made him relax, but Finn still didn't know how to react to that look. The one that said he'd done something worthwhile. Not strategic or pleasing to the leader, but right. Heroic. So he gave a nod and tried to push down his natural urge to simply say whatever it was that would get that look to keep going, no matter how much or little those words actually involved the truth.

But after seeing Rey's face when he'd snapped he wasn't really with the Rebellion, he'd been trying to stick to the truth.

"Trust me, we're even. He save me too. Without a pilot, I wasn't going to be around much longer."

He didn't reply directly to that, though he nodded. An acceptance, of sorts, if not a full agreement.

"And now you're in the Resistance, fighting alongside my son," He said, and the latter part of the sentence seemed to have the same odd tightness that came into Poe's voice when he talked about his father. A careful acknowledgement of something he didn't like to think about.

He'd gotten better during his time with Poe at picking up on that tone. That, and Poe explicitly spelling out how his father felt about his time in the rebellion helped him figure out this may be a touchy subject. But it was instinct to stand up for the man's choices anyway.

"Couldn't have taken out the starkiller base without him. Poe saved a lot of lives besides mine."

Kes didn't answer immediately, though he began to frown, low and tight, and the next couple minutes were spent in silence. Then the speeder turned in another direction completely, almost a 90 degree angle from their course from before - where in the distance, a small off-white compound could be seen, just barely visible in the trees.

"I don't doubt it," he said, with a solemn finality, before he brought the speeder down through the trees to rest outside the compound.

Kes slid out, looking back at Poe, who was still completely asleep.

"Leave him for a bit - I think he needs it. I can show you around."

"Now he sleeps."

It was supposed to be a muttered comment to himself, but as Poe could attest from his muttering during their initial escape that didn't always work out so well. But it's said with a fond smile as he turns to follow Kes.

"I'd like that. Looks like...a lot of green."

Rey would like it, too.

A slight smile flickered at the mutter, but he just waited for Finn to catch up before taking him on a walk around. "One of the greenest places in the galaxy, I bet," he agreed. "Though one particular piece of green might interest you."

He led Finn over to where a singular tree lay in the meadow, the grass around it carefully kept. It seemed to almost... glow, with a light blueish pulse, and you could almost feel it when you went closer to it. Kes reached out and touched the bark softly.

"Do you know what this is?"

Glowing tree. From the slightly wary look Finn gives it- up until Kes touched it anyway- it's clear he hasn't. But giving things weird looks is no way to answer a question, especially when trying to make a good impression on his host.

"I don't. Doesn't look native."

"It is the farthest thing from native that you can imagine," Kes said, running his hands over the bark. "It was a gift. From Luke Skywalker, when we retired." He turned his head to look at Finn, as if gauging his reaction.

"It was one of two cuttings rescued from the tree that once sat in the Jedi Council. The last force-sensitive tree in the Galaxy. It was meant to be a sign of the forged peace - of the end of the war, of the return of hope." He turned back to look at it, his expression turning sad. "But it never ends."

He let his hand fall as he turned and walked toward the complex.

Finn couldn't have stopped himself if he tried. The moment Skywalker came out, he was reaching to touch the tree too. Force sensitive trees. He'd never have imagined. His tone turned almost reverent as he replied, taking along moment before he could pull himself away to follow the older man.

"They told us the Jedi were gone. There was no hope. But it's been out there the whole time. So that didn't end, either."

"They weren't lying. For all that it's worth, the Jedi are gone." Everything that they had done, pulled backwards as if it had never happened.

The galaxy reset, into another galactic civil war.

"It will just happen again, as it did before, and then there will be another reason to fight, after that. And another, after that."

"Yeah..."

He frowned. He agreed, on some level. Lots of levels, really. All that ones that had been ready to run to the outer rim and ignore it all, to survive instead of living. Finn's attention is fully on the nature around them instead of looking at the other man, not sure this would be a chat he could make it through with eye contact.

"But...could be something worse. Could be a galaxy with nothing left worth fighting for. Like the Order has in mind."

"You still have to be around to live it," Kes said, firmly, though not angrily. Just wearily. Someone who had this argument a hundred times before. Who had given the same argument, hundreds of times.

"You don't need to convince me of the cause, Finn."

"Wouldn't feel right if I didn't try."

Why go for the nice answers, the ones about how hard he believed in the cause, when the truth was easier. Because he agreed with the first point, it was one he'd made to Poe himself. But he knew where his loyalty was, and it was with the idiot napping the day away. So argue he would.

"It means too much to Poe."

Kes sighed, his head bowing as he looked at the ground - the lush, green grass that he and his wife had fought so hard, for so long, for.

And she barely even got to live it.

"I know it does," He said finally, heavily. "But he deserves more than to be canon fodder in a war."

"Poe is the best pilot they have."

What was happening? It was the same kind of talk he and Poe had had so many months ago, only with him playing the role of Poe today. But it felt right, clarifying how important it was. To Poe, if nothing else.

"It'd kill him not to be out there."

"And it will kill him to be there," Kes said, his back straightening, a firm warrior's look in his eye as he met Finn's.

"I know I can't stop my son from doing what he thinks is right. But that doesn't mean that it is."

Finn swallows, knowing way too well that statement's true. Poe was brave to the point of reckless. He'd die in that ship. More a matter of when than if. So he can't quite meet the older man's eyes as he replies, looking out over the green instead.

"I- I was a stormtrooper from a long time. No one asked what we wanted, just told us what was best. And all I learned was...A life has to mean something. To the person living it. Not anyone else."

If that meant Poe's life would be a short one, Finn has to accept it. But he can't find it in him to push the point any harder than that.

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