I felt a lump rise in my throat as I saw Poe hop out his X-Wing. My legs were shaking too much to run, so for a moment, I just stood, trying to get a grip on my emotions, resting one hand on my forehead as I bet my lip, trying not to cry. My best friend was still alive. My best friend was still here, and he looked so happy. That was always the best way to describe Poe: Happy.

He was hugging Finn, who'd somehow managed to get to Poe before I could. Beebee-Ate was spinning in circles around the two of them, acting like a cat again, like he did with me. I couldn't help but grin.

"So, the resistance, huh?" I heard Poe smirk to Finn, hitting his arm gently again, looking proud.

"Not my first choice, but a friend insisted we had to get Beebee-Ate here," I heard Finn mutter, looking round, until he caught my eye. He shot me a small smile, and I felt my stomach flip again as Poe looked at him with a confused expression, following his gaze.

"Friend?" He frowned, looking in the direction Finn was, until he saw me. "Luci!"

I felt a nervous smile cross my face as I froze, not knowing what to do now he was looking at me. Still smiling slightly, I gave him an anxious wave letting out a small laugh before laughing slightly at my own awkwardness. I watched as he pulled himself away from Finn, hitting him on the back as almost a small way of thanks, before he began running to me. My legs, which had finally stopped shaking, began to move on their own accord, running at full speed, my heart pounding as I ran to him, like my life depended on it.

When we were close, I threw myself at him and he caught me. I wrapped my legs around his hips, his hands on my back as I held his neck. Leaning down, I kissed his forehead, laughing as he grinned up at me.

"Thanks for not being dead," I joked, his signature smirk crossing his face.

"You too," he grinned at me. "You're not normally this friendly, Luce,"

"You're not normally this strong, we'd do this a few years ago and you'd have dropped me. You been working out, flyboy?" I grinned at him, the sudden banter between us making me burst into tears.

"Hey, hey, don't cry, Luce," he said gently, laughing quietly as he moved his hand to wipe my cheek. I laughed gently with him as he set me on the ground gently, hugging me tightly. "I missed you,"

"Don't you always," I sighed with a smile, leaning down to bury my face into his shoulder. I was at least half a foot taller than him, meaning I had to bend down to hug him properly. He entwined his fingers with mine, moving his head to rest his forehead on mine, and I sighed out in relief and contentment. I was never happier than when I was with Poe.

"How'd you get back here?" he asked, pulling away from me slightly so he could look at my face properly. As his eyes met with mine, I looked away, feeling a blush rise up in my cheeks.

"Finn, and our friend Rey, we escaped from the First Order on Jakku with Beebee-Ate, didn't we buddy?" I interrupted my story to look down to the droid, who was wizzing around me. "We found my dad and Chewbacca on a freighter, hauling rathtars with Kanjiklub and the Guavian Death Gang on his back, he was just as much trouble as I remember him being,"

Poe laughed, stroking my hair, grinning. I'd missed his face, the way his cheeks dimpled when he smiled, the way he'd scrunch up his nose when he was thinking. I'd missed his hair too, when it flopped over his eyes whenever he took his flight helmet off, the way it curled when it was wet.

"What?" He said eventually, when he realised I was just staring at him. I turned away, blushing.

"I missed you, my life was miserable without you, and when I thought you were dead..." I stopped myself talking before I cried again, which was when Poe looked over me with concern.

"You didn't have a panic attack over me, did you?" His voice and his face genuinely looked worried, like he didn't want me to answer incase it was the answer he was dreading.

"No, I mean, I felt anxious coming back. When the X-Wings started landing, I panicked a little, because I didn't want you to not be there, but I was nervous for another reason too," I spoke quite rushed, like I needed to get the words out before I could stop myself, especially the last part. I knew that if I didn't tell Poe about what happened with the force in the forest, I wouldn't be able to tell anyone. "I did something back in the forest... Something with the force. Id never done it before but,"

"What was it?"

"It was like -"

"Hey, Amidala!"  I heard a voice yell from across the landing area. I spun around, seeing two girls my age stood by X-Wings in flight jumpsuits holding their helmets, one of them with brown hair braided into two loose plaits, the other with shoulder length dyed blue hair. The two had identical smirks on, and their faces were the same too, even though the blue haired one had her septum pierced.

Grinning, Poe hit me on the arm, kissed my cheek again, before running off, leaving me stood in the middle of the landing range, dumbfounded.

"Iz... Erika... You're alive!" I cried out as I began laughing, whooping, punching the air with both fists. I ran at full speed to them, throwing my arms around them both, pulling them close. "You- You're alive! Holy fucking Kenobi, you're both alive!"

"The way you're hugging me right now makes me wish I was dead," Izzy rolled her eyes.

"She's kidding," Erika muttered, hugging me back tightly.

"Apparently," Izzy rolled her eyes again, smirking slightly. "I'm insulted you're so surprised to see us, like did you think we were that shit we'd lose a fight to the Knights of Ren? I mean, just because you did,"

"I didn't lose a fight, I was arrested," I laughed. I'd spent so much time arguing that fact to them before, and it was almost funny how that was the first thing they bring up.

"Whatever," Izzy grinned, hitting my arm. "Where've you been, Amidala?"

"Jakku, kill me if I ever have to go there again," I groaned. "But I want to know about you! How the hell are you here? How are you alive?"

"After we got back to the Academy, when you went to go find Ben, we went to go find Master Skywalker," Erika began to explain, and the grimace on her face made me wonder if the two of them suffered like I did. "We thought something was up, like for one, no one was around,"

"The place was silent," Izzy remembered, looking off in the distance.

"Something had happened, we knew, like for one, any other time we arrived at the Academy before, within five minutes Jakkal and Alec would have started bothering us, or..."

"Or you could always hear Katjie and Marie arguing down the corridor of the dorms," I remembered, smiling nostalgically, biting my lip slightly.

"Yeah, well there wasn't anything like that," Izzy nodded slightly, her voice becoming thick, like she couldn't say the words.

"We thought Master Skywalker could be in the meditation room, with everyone else, we thought... I don't know what we thought, it all ended up being futile, really," Erika sniffed.

"Did you find him?" I asked, not knowing this part of the story. If they did find my uncle, he'd conveniently forgot to tell me.

"Yeah, but, we found him with the younglings," Erika glared down at the floor. I took hold of her arm, knowing what was coming next, considering I saw them too.

"They were dead," Izzy spat out bluntly and bitterly. She didn't look upset, instead she looked angry.

"I saw them too," I nodded sadly, hugging them again. I found it quite comforting to know I wasn't alone in seeing so many of my Uncle's Padawans dead, as horrible as it was. I wish none of us had seen it, I wish it hadn't happened, but at least I wasn't alone.

"Well we found Master Skywalker in there, battling against four Ren's. It was just like the stories he told us, he was pretty good, except..." Erika began talking again, remembering their story wasn't finished, as much as the ending hurt.

"He was losing, they managed to disarm him, and pushed his had onto a fire. They thought it was his real one, but the wires and the skin burnt off,"

"Which left just the framework," I finished for them. Uncle Luke hadn't told me how his fake hand had been damaged.

"They were too distracted with Mater Skywalker, so we got behind them and killed two of them. The other two fled back to the rest of them," Izzy spoke bitterly, like she wished she'd had chance to kill the other two. "When he told us what had happened, with Ben... well we wanted to stay, to fight with you, but Master Skywalker forced us away. He told us to get back on the ship to flee, to go undercover, go to the resistance. He promised us that he'd find you and get you there himself,"

"We went back to Tatooine, because hell, that place was boring, and we hid there for a few years, since we didn't know where the Resistance base was. When we got there though, we found a band of rebels, fighting against a pack of First Order troops. They'd taken over Anchor Head, Mos Eisley, set up base in Beggars Canyon," I clenched my hand into a fist, not knowing the planet I spent most of my childhood on had been infiltrated by the First Order. Erika saw me glaring and continued speaking. "We recruited ourselves into the group of resistance fighters to help against the First Order. It took a few years but we overthrew their rule on Tatooine. We liberated the planet, freed them,"

"Didn't last though, nothing good ever does," Izzy spat darkly. "The First Order sent more Storm troopers, bombed our base," she stopped speaking, looking at me, before grabbing my arm. "We based ourselves in Obi Wan's,"

"His old hut? It-It's gone?" I frowned, not believing what I heard. The two nodded slowly, looking at the ground. Obi Wan's hut was one of my Uncle's favourite places to take me on Tatooine. I'd spent so long there with him, even with Ben as kids. I made my lightsaber in there after getting back to Tatooine from the Crystal Caves on Ilum with my Kyber crystal. I used to meditate there whenever we'd be on Tatooine, and when the First Order destroyed our home on Tatooine, my family would stay there. It was only a house, but the loss of it struck me hard.

"We fled again, not that either of us wanted to, we were done with running. The rest of our group brought us back to the main base, where your mother was in command. She knew from you that we were good pilots, so she signed us into the flight squads, and here we are,"

"And here we are," I nodded back at them, and despite our serious conversation, I laughed slightly. "I'm glad you're both not dead,"

"I'm glad we're not dead too," Izzy smirked, pushing away all the emotions she was just showing, going back to her usual sarcasm. "Now come on, we've all got work to,"

***
Word count: 1996
***
Hey guys. Sorry I didn't post yesterday but I'm sure you all know about Carrie. I was really worried about her and didn't want to upload because of it. Her and her family remain in my thoughts and I hope she gets better.

Anyway, I'm glad to finally post a chapter with Poe in, not to mention Izzy and Erika. I was really nervous about them so please tell me what you thought in the comments.
I might post tomorrow but I might be to busy, so I'll post on Boxing Day.
Happy Christmas!
~Olivia