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The mission brief - the first real mission brief - comes just after FN-2187 and his squad are released for the day.
FN-2187 is standing idly by his bed, debating between studying more or trying to join Slip and Nines at their dice game. From what he can see around their bent heads, the scoring looks similar to the last time they let him play, and they've only just sat down to play. There will never be a better time for him to invite himself over - then again, he thinks, pressing his lips together, that doesn't mean it's a good time. They never do seem excited to let him in.
Still, he's really sick of memorizing event codes that will probably be changed soon anyway.
He exhales sharply and takes a step towards his fellow cadets, and then Zeroes bursts through the door, all his gear on and a briefing pad in his hand. "Mission!" Zeroes yells, and bounds up to FN-2187. He grabs FN-2187 by the shoulders and shakes him vigorously. "We have a mission! Grab your buckets, ladies!" He punctuates by shoving FN-2187 towards the armor rack and then bounces over to knock Nines' dice tower to the floor.
Nines yells and grabs Zeroes around the neck, and then there's a scramble at the table.
FN-2187 grabs his own bucket, but doesn't pull it over his head. "What mission?" he asks, and then louder, when there's no reply from the squabbling troopers, "Zeroes! What mission are you talking about? We're not scheduled for any more night training. I would've remembered."
He would've remembered that, surely. FN-2187 hasn't forgotten any duties since he was too young for a bucket, even, growing out of his pants too fast to bother replacing and stumbling around making a damn shame of himself- anyway. There's no training.
Nines finally shoves Zeroes away, and Zeroes stumbles away from the table, almost tripping over a bunk. He turns to where Slip has ducked into a corner to protect the score sheet and dice counters. Slip tenses at the attention, prepared to get wrestled to the ground.
FN-2187's hands clench on his bucket.
"FN-2000!" He bellows. "Stop dancing around like you're performing for the Hutts and tell me what mission."
Zeroes turns around, shoulders hitching up defensively and a sneer in his voice when he responds, "Blast it, Eight-Seven. Never heard you get heated like that about training. What's wrong, d'you slip down the rankings to join the rest of the group? Phasma not letting you lick her boots anymore 'till you shape up?"
Slip frowns before FN-2187 can come up with a response that isn't punching his brother in the face, regardless of Zeroes' bucket or FN-2187's unprotected hand. "Oh no," he says. "It's not NVGs again, is it? We're supposed to be done drilling those, I haven't practiced!"
All the tension leaves Zeroes at once and he turns, laughs, says, "Nah, not kriffing NVGs, Slippy, this is a real, proper mission! Phasma sent out the briefing herself. Going to shut down some Resistance insurgent camp, fuck up some rebel scum, blow some shit up." He tosses the briefing pad towards FN-2187 without looking. "There, see? Now change your panties and put your bucket on! We're big boys now!"
Nines whoops, and Zeroes yells back, and they tussle again. Slip joins in this time, flinging himself helpfully on Zeroes' back. FN-2187 reads the briefing, but it doesn't actually contain more information than he's just been given, besides a rally point and go-time.
He puts the pad down slowly. It's shaking in his hand for some reason, but there aren't any transmission coming through. Zeroes must've broken it, he thinks. A real mission, just like that, no warning or anything, just a normal day and then they have a combat mission against real people- scum. A combat mission against rebel scum. This is what's he's trained for.
FN-2187 is one of the highest ranked Stormtroopers currently in training. He can do this.
"You got this," he assures himself quietly, and puts his bucket on, goes to strap on his gloves and boots and get the others situated in time to rally. "Just like the drills. You got this."
-
The mission is nothing like the drills.
Slip dies.
FN-2187 loses track of Nines and Zeroes almost immediately. He makes sure to stick close to Slip, to watch his back. The rest of his squad can manage themselves, and FN-2187 doesn't need anyone to watch his back in return, but Slip is notorious in training for watching where the blasters fire and fucking up his NVGs. FN-2187 needs to keep an eye out-
-and then just like that, between one thought and the next, Slip is falling, bleeding, dead, and FN-2187 had been watching him, had seen the blaster hit him, and that's probably why his vision is fucked and blurry now.
Slip dies, and then Kylo Ren shows up, and leaves, and all the shooting peters out once there's no one left to shoot back at them.
FN-2187 thinks suddenly that he'll need to do after-action, submit his blaster for inspection and so it'll need to show that he fired it. He aims at the half-crumbled wall of a hut and pulls the trigger.
He flinches when it goes off and the bolt goes winging over the wall into the night.
His blaster is shaking- maybe it's broken, just like the briefing pad, maybe Zeroes got into it and fucked it up as a joke. He straps it away just in case.
Everything smells metallic from where Slip grabbed at his bucket. FN-2187 can't get enough air, wonders whether Slip accidentally clogged the filter, maybe the villa- the rebels used some kind of aerosolized attack, maybe the smoke-
It's not the smoke. He's not thinking, he needs to stop, he needs to think. The mask filters out smoke. "You're fine, it's okay," he tells himself. "Go back to the ship. One foot in front of the other, fast as you can."
He does. He puts his foot down, and then puts the other in front, and then again, and then again, and then he has to stop running to wrestle off his bucket and throw up.
-
The transport up is a lot roomier than the ride down had been.
-
Poe Dameron slaps his shoulder like they're friends and names him Finn. He focuses on that, on getting away and having a name and being liked, and not on how many bodies their escape leaves behind. He had to- he had to get away. The other cadets were going to stop him, and there wasn't time to explain, to get them to leave.
Most of his squad, his brothers, they wouldn't have been in the bay when they left, he thinks. Not just after their first real mission. They're off in their rooms, not kneeling down and pointing cannons at the Tie Fighter so Finn has to fire first and blow them into so many piece-
He needs to focus if this escape is going to work. "Shoot the missiles," he tells himself. "Just get away, it's okay. You're okay."
-
The lady from Jakku points him at the gunner position of the garbage they're going to fly out of town, and Finn can't say no. There's no reason to say no. He can shoot; it's what he was raised his whole life to do. He can shoot just fine.
It's just that the controls are shaking a bit, and in this seat, that means the whole kriffing rig is shaking, and he hopes it's not about to fly apart on him. There's no problem, though, Finn can shoot.
The tie fighters aren't going to just stop following, after all. Finn doesn't know a single trooper who would stop in the middle of a mission- you don't stop unless you're dead, and you better have a damn good excuse for that.
He doesn't know the pilots all that well, actually. They weren't on his squad, so he only saw them on some of the bigger training mission, or in the breakrooms or across the mess every day at mealtimes. Maybe they would stop if he gave them a damn good excuse, if he aims for the wings-
"Are you ever going to fire back?" The lady demands in his earpiece, and Finn focuses, breathes.
"You got this," he says, and fires back.
-
Solo shoots Nines on Takodana, and Finn is- he's- it's a good thing. Finn didn't want to die and he couldn't go back to the First Order. That didn't leave a lot of other options, and Solo took the best of those so, it's okay. Finn understands why Solo killed Nines.
He understands why Nines was trying to kill him. Finn isn't the only one who lost Slip on Jakku, isn't even the one who loved Slip the most, and Nines just had Zeroes to lean on, no Poe or Rey or the hope of a peaceful life ahead to help him focus. It makes sense that he wouldn't be able to handle seeing Finn again.
Finn remembers, when they got bunked together on that first night, Nines crying in his bunk for two horrible hours before Slip finally crawled into the bunk with him. Slip was always the best at making up stories, and he spent the whole night with Nines, making up stories about how they were going to be the best troopers in the universe. Everything was going to be fine, he promised, they just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other right now.
Finn had stood watch all night, listening, and keeping an eye out for older cadets coming to tattle.
They'd all been exhausted the next day. Finn had fallen asleep in their history class and when he borrowed Nines' notes later, they were covered in stupid doodles of himself, drooling and of Slip staring uselessly at the clock.
Finn is the only one alive who remembers those days, now.
It's fine.
It's fine.
He stumbles over the remnants of a bathroom and looks up just in time to see Kylo Ren carry Rey into his ship.
All of Finn's muscles tense up at once. He feels numb, and all he can smell is blood again, like Slip is right there still clutching at Finn's face, or maybe like some of Nines' blood splattered when he got shot, and all Finn can see is Rey, limp and not moving and-
He can't let the First Order have Rey.
Finn runs. He drops the blaster and the lightsaber he's holding, puts one foot in front of the other, then again, then again, faster and faster and not fast enough.
"Rey!" he yells. The ships takes off. He's alone, surrounded by bodies and fire, and he can't get enough air, and Slip is dead and Nines is dead and Poe is dead. Maybe Rey is not dead yet. Maybe Finn can still get her out. He got himself out, so maybe- maybe-
His hands are shaking. He's not holding anything to blame it on, it's just himself and his hands and they're shaking.
"It's okay," he tells himself, then turns to find Solo and make it true.
-
They save the day, but when Finn finally wakes up, Solo is still dead and Rey is gone and the Starkiller base exploded.
Poe isn't dead. He's the one who shares the news of the outcome of the fight with Finn, like it's good news, like Finn should be proud of himself and his part in the battle.
Finn blinks at him. He's been in the bacta tank for a long while, and quietly drifting in and out of sleep for even longer. He feels calmer and more rested than he has since he was standing by his bunk listening to a dice game start up, but he's still not one hundred percent. Maybe he didn't understand properly.
"I thought we were just going to cripple the base," Finn says. He meant it to be a question, but it didn't come out that way, flat and angry sounding. He didn't mean to be angry at Poe, and he hopes Poe doesn't get mad, doesn't leave.
Poe laughs. "I'd say it's pretty crippled, my friend," he says, and he claps Finn's shoulder, gently, a mimic of brotherly affection but softened in deference to Finn's injuries. "Couldn't have done it without you."
Finn flinches. He breathes in and out, and in, and out, and his hands don't shake and he doesn't smell blood, but maybe that's good, because for the first time, he can think. He does, for long, long moments, and when he refocuses, Poe's smile is gone.
Poe's hand slips down to tighten around Finn's forearm instead. "Hey," he says, quieter. "I know it's a lot to-"
"There are generally around fifteen thousand mobile troops stationed at that base," Finn says. "It's a popular first posting, so most of those are shiny kids on their first base out of academy. I was stationed there, ten to sixteen."
Poe's smile is completely gone now, but he doesn't take his hand off Finn's arm, steady pressure helping to keep Finn anchored in place.
"I'm sorry," Poe says.
"I didn't have a choice," Finn says.
"I know you didn't," Poe says.
"I didn't know there was anything besides the First Order, not until I met you, not like I properly knew it. I knew other places exists but- they weren't real, weren't places I could go. Probably for all the people on that base, they weren't either."
"Someone shoots at us, we're gonna shoot back," Poe says, "We didn't start this fight. The First Order did that. All we're doing is fighting it."
Finn blinks, breathes. "It's okay," he says, then immediately, "I don't want to shoot anybody else."
Poe's hand tightens on his arm and finally slides away. "Okay," he says, "Just focus on healing, buddy. You don't have to do anything but that right now."
"Ever again," Finn insists, and Poe just says "okay" again and pushes at Finn's chest until Finn lays down. Finn closes his eyes and breathes in, breathes out, breathes in. It's easy to do. He feels very still now, and relaxed.
After a long time, he hears Poe leave.