Chapter Text
To my wife, on our wedding day:
I have fought, and I have lost.
War brought me to my knees, and fire nearly killed me.
But you.
God, you.
Gravity cannot pin me down the way your eyes do.
Forget stars. Moons. Planets.
In your eyes, my love, I was reborn, blazing into light so bright I forgot what darkness ever was.
I am yours, entire, unending, forever,
- PD
November 11, 1952
May 1951
“Not too long now.”
Poe nodded at his unlikely traveling companion, an elderly, wizened woman who barely came up to his elbow. They stared out at the white cliffs looming in the near distance, and Poe tightened his jaw subconsciously. He hadn’t laid eyes on those cliffs for seven years, not since he was sent to rehabilitate and his career as a pilot ended and the loss of his fallen brothers was still fresh and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever walk again.
“You’ll be alright.” Margaret Kanata, or Maz as she’d introduced herself to Poe, patted him kindly on the arm. “Scars heal best when you go to the source, Captain.”
“I-” Poe paused, frowning. He didn’t think he’d given his rank to the old woman, but her placid smile settled him somewhat; perhaps he didn’t recall introducing himself. It wouldn’t be the first time his memory had lapsed. “I was already injured by the time I was here,” Poe pointed out instead. “The scars were made back there.”
He gestured behind them, towards the continent they steamed steadily away from, born across the waves in a ferry that had proudly served its country in 1940 as German planes screamed overhead, U-Boats lurked underneath, and death shrouded both sides of the channel.
Maz patted him on his side, over his journal which was tucked safely away in a pocket of his waterproof jacket. “The living wounds were made there, my boy. But they became scars away from the war; how they healed, or didn’t heal, happened here.”
Poe didn’t know what to say to that, but Maz seemed content to return her hand to the railing, her brown eyes focused once more on the churning, grey waters. He gazed into the channel as well, mind drifting to the weeks he’d spent combing France, Austria, even Germany - places he had flown over in the war, places he had infiltrated, or landed (or crashed).
It hadn’t been easy.
Not easy to walk the streets once littered with bodies. Not easy to find the mass graves of fallen friends. Not easy to place his hand on the gates of hell and whisper prayers for those who’d died before the liberation, those whose scars so terrifyingly outweighed his own.
But he was a writer, was one before he was a pilot, and he had to bear witness. He had to. If he had to be cursed with these images behind his eyelids every time he tried to get a moment of rest, a second of sleep, Poe could damn well organize them into thoughts and give them back to the world, help others make sense of what was insensible.
And now he had to take the notes he’d collected for nearly two months and turn them into a story that could be published. A Herculean task, but one he’d complete, even if it killed him.
Wouldn’t be the first time he’d risked death in a foreign country.
Maz shifted next to him, stirring him from his reverie. “Where will you stay, Captain Dameron?”
“Not sure.” He shook his head, patting his other pocket for a letter. “The man I meant to stay with - Temmin Wexley-” Maz nodded, clearly knowing the name, “His stepfather took ill a few weeks ago, and they went to the city to see a doctor there.” He gave her a wry grin. “Any suggestions for a weary traveler?”
“You could always stay in my bed,” Maz suggested with a wink and a teasing grin, and Poe blushed despite her clear joke. “But, no. I think I do know a place.” She smiled, to herself this time, as she studied the waves. “The perfect place for you both.”
“Us both?” Poe asked, but Maz was clearly no longer in the mood to answer.
When he disembarked thirty minutes later, he had a harried list of directions in his journal, which he’d taken down quickly as Maz rattled them off. He squinted down at his chicken scratch - shakier than normal thanks to the rocking of the boat - and turned left from the dock entrance.
He hailed the cart driven by the man who looked like “a ferocious bear,” per Maz’s admiring notes, right outside the pub named The Falcon, and sat on the back among the rattling milk bottles in stacked crates. The countryside rumbled past at a quick rate, pulling them from the busier seaside concentration of buildings to houses and structures further and further apart; after some twenty minutes on the cart, they entered a village, where Poe hopped down and shook the giant’s hand, thanking him while making an effort to pay him.
The large man warbled something at him, his Scottish brogue making it far too hard to actually understand the individual words, but when he folded Poe’s hand over the offered money, Poe nodded in thanks and shouldered his bag, grasping the small luggage that carried his typewriter with his stronger arm. Checking Maz’s instructions again, Poe struck out towards the western edge of town, the breeze still strong off the water - they’d traveled along the coast, closer than he’d thought then.
The paths were slightly overgrown with grass and weeds as he exited the village, nodding politely at the few people he saw - they regarded him with uncomfortable intensity that wasn’t so much mistrustful as it was unsure - and he walked for nearly thirty minutes down the path, not a soul in sight except the various farm animals in the distance. The path veered right, away from the sea, and at long last, he crested the final hill noted in Maz’s slapdash directions.
From his new vantage point, Poe spotted a charming little house with abundant windows, most of which were thrown open to the clean, warm air. Laundry danced on clotheslines, and a few chickens wandered around near the side entrance; in the distance, cows lowed, and birds called from the thicket of trees that bracketed the rear of the bed and breakfast. A hand-painted sign hung at the end of the path, welcoming foot travelers, and a small road passed in front of the house, headed northwest away from the village he’d come through to get here:
Hope Cottage .
Poe smiled, breathing deeply before setting down the path that wound lazily to the front gate, scattering a few chickens as he walked. A promising place, he decided, and a quiet one, perfect to write his book.
“Hello?” Poe called when he was at the door; it was thrown open, much like the windows, and his voice disturbed some of the chickens, who squawked indignantly, fluttering off the ground for a moment, before settling and pecking their way towards him. “Got nothin’ for you pretties,” Poe said by way of apology.
“Nothin’ at all?” Someone asked in an American accent.
Poe looked up to see a handsome black man walking through the darker, cooler interior of the house; his breath stilled in his throat, and he blinked twice, freezing where he stood.
“Anthony?” He breathed, cold coursing through his veins.
The man came into sharper relief as he neared the door and the light streaming in, and Poe’s vision cleared. While he shared a complexion with Anthony Muran, he had a wider face, a shorter, broader build, and his eyes were the wrong shape and shade (and also, of course, this man had the clear advantage of being alive).
“Sorry?” He smiled politely, a real nice smile, and Poe nearly dropped his typewriter to extend his hand over the threshold of the house. “The name’s Finn, Finn Calrissian. I don’t think we’ve met?”
“No, we haven’t.” Poe released his hand and adjusted his grip on his luggage. “Cap- uh, Poe Dameron. A lady from town told me I should ask about lodging here, for the summer? Do you have availability?”
“Do I have--” Finn frowned and then laughed, leaning against the door frame. “No, I don’t own this place. Christ, that’d be wonderful, but Mrs. Solo wouldn’t part with it in a thousand years. Something about the memory of her husband?”
Mrs. Solo. That would be the owner then - Poe envisioned a sweet, little old lady to match the house and the fluttering yellow curtains. She probably had curling, iron-grey hair, and a pink apron with pockets stashed full of cookies - a widow, judging by Finn’s comment, with a spine of steel and a heart of gold. He’d met a few strong, older women like that in his travels. Poe smiled at the vision of the matron and adjusted the strap of his luggage once more.
“You must be exhausted.” Finn glanced down the road. “You walked here?”
“Yes, sir,” Poe shrugged as if to pretend it wasn’t a big deal, like his leg and shoulder weren’t screaming in protest. “Yes to both questions, I suppose.”
“Come in, come in.” Finn gestured for him to follow, and turned and walked into the house. Poe glanced around the front once more, feeling oddly as though he were intruding without permission - perhaps the stern vision of the Mrs. Solo made him think this - and entered Hope Cottage. “You should meet the others,” Finn called out to him, and Poe nearly tripped over a cat that streaked past him, fat and orange and yowling.
Poe watched the cat disappear, grinning after it fondly, remembering his father’s cat from the farm back home. He wondered how the old beast was doing; Finn popped his head out from around the corner.
“Ignore Bea, she must have seen a mouse.” As if to confirm Finn’s suspicion, Bea yowled once more, with a high-pitched squeaking accompanying her ferocious yawp - both quickly cut off. “Christ, I hope she doesn’t leave the head lying out again. ‘Bout scared Mrs. Solo half to death when she saw that last one.”
“Did not,” another American accent, but this voice belonging to a woman, argued just out of sight.
Poe rounded the corner into a beautiful, open kitchen with checkered tiles and a large table set for afternoon tea. The windows were also open back here, with the same pretty yellow curtains rustling in the breeze; these windows faced the trees, giving an altogether cozy atmosphere to the space.
At the table were two women, each distinctly pretty: a black woman who was already elbowing Finn as he sat down, and an Asian woman with her hair in two ponytails.
“This is Poe Dameron,” Finn introduced, gesturing for Poe to sit. He held his hand out to the women before obliging, and Finn introduced them as well. “This is Jannah, my sister-”
“-Adopted sister, thus the no resemblance,” she said, winking at Poe as they shook hands.
“-and this here is Rose Tico, best mechanic in the world.”
“Oh, hush,” Rose said, turning a shade of pink that suggested she perhaps did not want Finn to stop complimenting her.
Poe sat and looked around at the bountiful spread in front of them. “Is this normal?” He asked, astounded.
“Only on Fridays,” Rose said breezily, cutting a hearty slice of cake. “We do have tea every day-”
“-a cuppa , as Mrs. Solo would say-,” Jannah added with a wry grin.
“But Fridays are special.”
And the meal did look special: a beautiful cake with what looked like coconut topping, sandwiches piled high on three silver platters, and tea served on gorgeous china.
“Where is Mrs. Solo?” Poe asked, looking around again. “I don’t want to intrude, and if there isn’t availability, I should find somewhere else to lodge for tonight-”
“There’s availability.” Rose assured him.
“Jannah and Rosie share a room upstairs, and I’m in the downstairs bedroom.” Finn pointed somewhere in the corner, down a darkened hallway. “There’s another bedroom for rent behind the library.”
“Mrs. Solo will be here soon, though,” Jannah added. “She only went to fetch the afternoon batch of eggs, something about a low yield this morning.”
“That happens sometimes,” Poe said, nodding, “with weather changes, the hens can get their feathers riled up.”
“You know too much about chickens,” Finn said, shaking his head. “But I’m sure Mrs. Solo won’t mind.”
“Mrs. Solo won’t mind what?” A woman called out from the back yard, having overhead through the open windows.
Footsteps crunched over loose gravel, and Poe stood up, feeling foolish as he waited at the edge of the table for the newcomer to cross the door. She did a moment later, wearing an apron that wasn’t pink like he imagined, but tan and stained, over a green dress - her hair wasn’t curly and grey, either, but dark brown and in a braid that draped over a slender shoulder.
“Won’t mind that your new renter has an peculiar amount of knowledge about chickens,” Rose teased, grinning up at Poe, who couldn’t answer.
Couldn’t answer, because the widow, Mrs. Solo, wasn’t a kindly old grandmother, but a beautiful woman easily a decade his junior, with freckled cheeks and large hazel eyes that pinned him down the second she turned her (frankly terrifying as it was mesmerizing) gaze on him.
“Poe Dameron,” Finn said, waving at the still-frozen Poe, “Meet Mrs. Rachel Solo. Mrs. Solo, this is Poe. He needs a place to stay for the summer.”
She examined him for a long moment, and Poe squirmed, his bag heavy at his feet, her gaze heavy on his shoulders. He felt naked in her gaze, struck to the core - like he’d been hit by lightning. Then, she blinked and the moment passed.
“You can have the last bedroom,” Mrs. Solo decided, turning away to wash her hands at the sink. She set her basket of eggs down near the ice box. “It’s through the library, which is the first door on the right when you come in, in front of the stairs. The door is locked promptly at nine p.m. each night, and breakfast will be served around seven thirty. The rate will be determined later.”
She brushed her hands on her apron to dry them and surveyed the table, not noticing Poe’s confused expression. The woman undid the strings of her apron and pulled it over her head, folding it carefully and setting it on the counter, her hand lingering on the fabric for a moment while she stared into space, clearly deep in thought.
“Why later?” Poe asked as Mrs. Solo turned to walk down the hallway leading to the front of the house.
He almost regretted it; her hazel eyes glanced at him once more, and in the warm breeze, he shivered. “The rate, I mean,” he clarified. “Why determine it later? Ma’am,” he added quickly.
“So I can decide how much trouble you’ll be,” she answered after a long moment, cradling her left hand in her right, in front of her midriff. A defensive posture if Poe had ever seen one. “You’ll find I don’t care for trouble, Mr. Dameron.”
And with that, she was gone, vanishing out of sight; he heard steps heading upstairs, creaking at times, and then nothing.
Poe became aware he was still standing when Rose cleared her throat tellingly. He sank into his seat, ruffled and shocked for reasons he couldn’t quite name; something about that woman’s appearance set him on edge, and not in an entirely unpleasant sort of way. Poe felt … awake.
“Yeah,” Finn laughed after thirty seconds of silence had passed with Poe staring at his empty teacup. “She’s like that.”
Poe shook himself and laughed too, reaching for the platter of sandwiches Jannah nudged in his direction, and their conversation resumed with chatter and scattered laughter that filled the kitchen with light and warmth in the mid-afternoon sunshine.
Upstairs, Rey sat on the edge of her bed, hands clasped in front of her. She closed her eyes and tilted her face up to the sun, breathing in deeply through her nose, releasing it shakily through her mouth.
Laughter drifted up towards her from the kitchen - how easy it would be to go down the stairs and join them, to laugh and joke and be young again. But she felt ancient, and older still as she twisted her fingers together, looking down at the pale strip of skin on the fourth finger of her left hand where a ring had once shone, but would no longer.
With the arrival of the fourth American, the cottage was now full, and she would need to place the sign out front advertising that there was no vacancy; Rey would need to do that sooner, rather than later, and then she would have to fix up that last bedroom, and then return to the study and examine the finances once more, and then head back outside to care for the animals before supper, and then prepare supper itself.
It would probably be easier not to eat. Rey shook her head, her stomach pinched - her eyes too, and her mouth, and her soul if she were being honest - and took another breath in an attempt to steady herself.
She stood and smoothed out the skirt of her dress, glancing at the mirror to study her appearance. Rey wrinkled her nose and picked a piece of hay from her hair, wiping her thumb against the edge of her nose to pick up the streak of dirt that smeared across her freckled skin.
Perhaps she should have worn a hat - he was always after her to do just that, and in the last twenty months, Rey had taken it on herself to wear that hat as little as possible. But given the way the American had stared at her - Poe, she reminded herself, now that there were two American men, she should perhaps use their names to avoid confusion - she looked frightful with her dirty dress and face, her messy hair, her freckled complexion.
Rey smoothed out her skirt once more, remembering how his warm, brown eyes had studied her, his classically handsome features twisted as though in fear or disgust - no. No, he didn’t know her. And she certainly didn’t know him, so why would she worry over securing his good opinion of her? She clenched her hands into fists, refusing to fuss over her appearance a moment longer, and swept downstairs to attend to her afternoon duties.
At the door, Rey paused for a moment to hear the snippets of conversation and laughter flowing from the kitchen. They sounded happy. Carefree. Rey rested her hand on the doorframe and closed her eyes, envisioning herself among them, head tilted back, mid-laugh, as the sun caught on her hair, warming and wrapping around her like a kind embrace.
Imagination was not a luxury she could afford for long; remembering the day and its tasks, and all the ways she couldn’t sit and laugh so carelessly, Rey set her shoulders and walked into the yard, content at least with the green grass and fresh air that came, unlike so many things, at no cost to her.