I'll Come Back for You

Sand. There was so much fucking sand. It was in his hair, his ears, his mouth, his eyes—gods knew where else. And everything hurt. If it was possible for a person to break his entire body, Poe had done it.

He lay on his back, shielding his face from the sun and shaking his head. This was by far the worst situation he’d ever gotten himself into.

The only thing that could make this go away was Isla, and at this point, all he had left were his memories.

---

"So you're from Coreilla, yet you've never flown before?"
Poe and Isla sat on one of the mats in the training center. They had met up just after midnight about every night this week; this time, neither of them really felt like doing any boxing. It had only been seven or eight days, but the two had struck up a little friendship.
Isla shook her head no.
"The first time I ever left the ground was to come here."
Scrubbing his face in disbelief, Poe looked at her with wide eyes.
"What the hell were you doing there the whole time? You lived there for what, twenty-three years?"
"My aunt was afraid of flying and my parents…weren't really around enough to take me up," she explained, playing with a string on her pant leg. "But I learned other stuff."
Isla shrugged nonchalantly. There was a brief pause.
"Other stuff like picking pockets…?" Poe ventured, nudging her slightly with a smile.
She looked up, alarmed.
"How did you—?"
"I don't clip my badge on the right side of my belt." He'd noticed it the other night when he got back to his quarters.
Her cheeks reddened and she huffed a little; he wasn't sure if it was because she'd been caught or because she'd been sloppy.
"What'd you need it for anyway?"
"I dunno'," she answered slowly. "I just…it's what I do sometimes when I get bored…which happens a lot…"
“C’mon, Isla.”
"That's really true, but…I guess I just wanted to see how old you are, where you're from…" Isla trailed off.
"You could've just ask—hey, wait, that information is only in the system."
Her dark blonde eyebrows lifted and Isla played with her ear.
"Yeah…" Poe heard her gulp. "So?"
"You hacked it?" He hastily sat up straighter, pressing her for an answer.
"A little."
"Isla!"
"I didn't look at anything valuable, I swear."
"Unbelievable!" A part of him was actually angry with her. He wanted to shake her shoulders and ask her if she was out of her mind. "You could get into a ton of trouble for this."
It was true, he hadn't known her for long at all, but he had felt an immediate connection. Was he going to be able to trust her now? What did he really know about her?
Fiddling with her fingernails, Isla looked away from him. She was thinking.
"Wait," Poe forced her to look at him. "Does anyone know that you know how to do this kind of stuff?"
"Not exactly…" Isla's nose twitched.
As her superior, it was his responsibility to report her. His mind was frantic—how could he turn this around?
"You have to let them know so that they can protect our information better. I mean, if you could do this in your bunk just think of what the First Order could do..."
She hesitantly watched him think it over, an idea forming in his head.
"Could you hack someone else's database?"
"Possibly…"
He grabbed her arm and hauled her off the ground.
"Where are we going?"
"You're going to bed. And tomorrow when you wake up, I'm taking you to the General."

***

A man of his word, Poe was waiting outside the trainee barracks the next morning for Isla. She ground her teeth together and followed him to the main building. Honestly, she was angry—she wanted to be angry at him for making her do this, but it was his job. Really, she was just angry at herself; angry at the fact that no matter how far she got from home and how little she'd had to do with her parents the past year, she couldn't shake the criminal genes. She should've known that dropping out of the smuggling game and joining the good guys wasn't going to change her makeup.
And, let's face it, she was angry at herself for being so careless about it; her mother would have smacked her for not noticing which side of his belt Poe kept his badge.

***

"Commander Dameron," the General walked into the small, windowless room absentmindedly. "If this is about me bumping you off that last assignment, I assure you a private meeting was not nece—"
She stopped speaking when she saw Isla.
"Oh. And who is this?"
"General Organa, this is Isla Kesson—new recruit."
"Pleasure to meet you Miss Kesson." She turned to Poe. "And what is this about?"
Poe taped Isla's ankle with the toe of his boot, nudging her forward.
"Tell her."

***

So Isla told her the entire story, and not just the part about hacking into their system. She told the General everything; how she grew up on Coreilla primarily with her aunt, a mechanical engineer at one of the industrial plants. Iris could program, reprogram, design, pull apart, and put back together just about anything. Isla's mother, Irena, was just as good; she just happened to use her skills to steal information and sell it on the black market. Isla's father wasn't any better; he was a smuggler. And both of her parents were occasionally known to moonlight as guns-for-hire. She reluctantly mentioned that she herself had been involved in some smuggling since her late teens (well, the groundwork portion of it anyway)—a fact unbeknownst to Poe, whose eyebrows shot to the top of his forehead as he quickly looked down to conceal his surprise.
"I see…" General Organa regarded Isla cautiously. "So I'm assuming this is why you basically came to us as a pre-programmed combat fighter?" Isla nodded, grimacing slightly. Is that what Captain Mayo thought of her? It made her sound like a droid.
"And you hacked into our computer system for…what…exactly?"
"…To see if I could," Isla answered hesitantly. "M'am." She added the formality quickly, trying to save herself.
If Poe thought this meeting would do any good, he was wrong. This was it for her—she knew it. She'd be tossed out of the Resistance, or worse; she'd be arrested.
"You could fix these…loopholes…you got through?"
"Absolutely, m'am."
"She might be able to get intel from other databases too," Poe chimed in. He felt the coolness of Isla's glare radiating toward him.
The General thought for a while, looking from Poe to Isla then back to Poe, shaking her head the entire time.
Isla felt Poe's hand drop to her shoulder in reassurance. It didn't help.
"You remind me a little of someone, Miss Kesson."
Isla coughed nervously.
"Alright. You're suspended from any official activities for three weeks. During that time, you will work with our programmers to fix whatever faults you found in our system. After that, you will continue your training. But if I ever find out that you pull something like that again, you're gone. Is that understood?"
"I could literally kiss your boots right now." Isla murmured.
Oh my stars, she thought, did I just say that out loud.
Poe's lips twitched, hiding both a smile and a hearty laugh.
General Organa looked amused.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to—"
"No need for any of that, Miss Kesson." She smiled slightly. "I'm glad you accept my terms. Now if that's all, I have a meeting soon—"
"Actually, General—" Poe spoke up. Again. "I would like to put in a formal request to train Miss Kesson. She should learn how to fly."
The General looked at Isla, again trying to mask her bewilderment.
"I don't think Miss Kesson is really headed down that path, Commander." She spoke slowly.
"It never hurts to learn—we could always use a few extra runners; you never know with the way our numbers are hurting.”
General Organa looked at Poe—right through him really, like she knew this was about something more than the good of the Resistance.
"A convincing argument." She appraised Isla. "Looks like someone is looking out for you, Miss Kesson. I'll send a message to Captain Mayo letting her know of your new arrangements."
The General stood up to leave.
"Oh, Commander." Poe looked up at her. "This training of yours will have to wait. You're going to Tatooine tomorrow."

***

They left the room, Isla trailing behind Poe like a kicked akk dog. He looked over his shoulder at her, how much anger he should feel toward her still undetermined.
"You owe me," he muttered and walked away.
"I owe you?" Isla scurried after him. "You should've just told her to let me go."
"Joking." He stopped. "Please tell me you're joking."
"I was trying so hard to be good." She said, practically seething. "I slipped once and now everyone around here is going to know about me. No one will trust me. I'm going to be useless, regardless of what good you think you did in there. You think I'm going to get assigned to anything confidential in the future? Not a chance. I'll be the liar and the thief with a good left hook."
As she went on, Poe studied her. There was so much frustration and anger in her lean frame; he wondered how she had held it all in for so long. He rationalized that they both had a right to be angry at the situation. He was just doing his job and maybe, by doing this, she would find where she fit in here. Poe imagined it had to be hard to make a complete 180° like she was doing—his moral compass had basically been ingrained at birth; hers may have been removed.
"I'll trust you."
"You're just saying that. I could see it all over your face last night. What this—” she pointed to the two of them. “Was, it’s gone now.”
This woman probably won every game of sabacc she every played.
"Use your powers for good," he started, smiling a little at how corny the line sounded, "and I'll trust you."
He watched her glance at him from the corner of her green eyes.
“Out of curiosity,” he asked. “Am I younger or older than you thought?”
“Younger.”

---

Poe managed to pull himself off of the ground. His arms and legs appeared to be in working order, and if he pressed on his ribs just right, he could walk without too much trouble.
Now he just needed to figure out where to go.

---

"Now this isn't my X-Wing," Poe said as he led her outside the hangar. "This one is a tandem so we can both go up." He looked back Isla, her eyes scanning the length of the starfighter. "Don't get any ideas though—I disabled your controls. Don't want a little novice killing me in a fiery wreckage on my day off."
If possible, Isla looked even cuter in the orange flight suit. It hung a bit loose over her shoulders and midsection, but pulled up around her ankles. Poe had noticed the length of her legs when she'd kicked him the chest during one of their sparring sessions. He still had the bruise.
She straightened the collar of her suit and climbed up the ladder. Once she took her seat, Poe followed to get her situated.
He knew she wasn't a child, but Poe couldn't resist finding her seatbelt for her and snapping her in. The fact that Isla didn't stop him or bat his fingers away when they lingered on her own made his chest swell just a bit.

***

Isla had been off her probation for a couple of days now and doing any activity outside the training center was a blessing; it'd taken all of two days to assist the programmers with their system. Poe had been gone routinely throughout those weeks and she hadn't yet gotten close to anyone else on base. Isla was never much of a social butterfly and it didn't bother her, but man, had she been bored as hell. A couple of times she trekked out to explore the forests and meadows, but then there had been a long stint of inclement weather.

***

"You ready, Birdie?" Poe's voice interrupted her thoughts over the comm.
"Ha ha," she replied, smiling a little. "Honest mistake."
As they began rolling down the tarmac, Poe wondered if she was nervous. She'd traveled to the base in a shuttle and this was an X-Wing; granted, it wasn't his customized ship, but there was still a dramatic difference for such a newbie.
"Here we go!"

***

They flew low for a while, as not to raise suspicion from any passing ships, but he was just high enough to throw in a few tricks. When she didn't complain about turning completely vertical, he rolled the ship a couple of times.
He heard her excited screams over the comm and smiled.
"You OK back there?"
"This is amazing!"

***

Poe jumped out of the X-Wing just as soon as he shut it down, but he noticed Isla hadn't even unbuckled her seatbelt.
He climbed up the ladder and softly tapped on her helmet.
"Are you alright?"
She pulled the helmet off, her yellow hair spilling onto her shoulders. Then she grinned slightly, her face a little ashen.
"I need to fly this."
"'Atta girl," he beamed, offering her a hand up. “You sure you’re ok?”
She took his hand, holding on tightly. When she wobbled on the ladder, Poe grabbed her hips and lifted her in his arms. She teetered slightly when her feet touched the ground and she rested a hand over her mouth. Isla met his gaze and paused.
"Thank you.”
“Anytime.” He reached out to steady her. “I hope I didn’t make you sick…”
“Oh no,” she burped and clapped her hands over her mouth. “Eh, sorry about that. No, I loved it—I really did—I just…don’t think I’m used to it just yet.”
“We’ll get there, Birdie,” he smiled. “We’ll get there.”