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a straight line

your name is paige tico & you should be dead. spoilers for tlj

i.

you wake up.

eyes flutter open. gently, slowly. like coming too after drowning except your lungs are bursting with water & you’re not sputtering, coughing like mad to expel the liquid from your body. you’re breathing. steadily. calmly. deeply. lethargic lungfuls cycle peacefully for a few seconds before you finally begin to see. the colours of gray, black & speckles of red washed light with soft edges sharpen into focus.

so you’re alive ( * again. you’re not drowning. again. that’s good ).

you wave away the sharp relief that punches through your throat when you realize it’s solid metal grate underneath your back & not the vacuum of space opening up beneath your soles. you look around, take stock of the situation, mind rolling through the motions of re - establishing where you are & what you should be doing.

rows upon rows of circular caskets surround you.

bombs. a lot of them. you don’t know how many, but nix would know. nix counts them dutifully ( * you’ve tried to break his stride multiple times, poking him to see if he loses the number in his head. he doesn’t, he never does & it’s why you keep doing it. ) before every drop & you heard his soft murmurs echoing across the emptier chambers of the hammer.

the ship is lighter. was lighter. is lighter ? they’re still here, after all. finch, nix, spennie

not anymore. ( * no, no, no. don’t think about that, that’s dead girl talk. you’re not dead, you’re alive. your heart is trying to pierce through your rib cage, but you’re alive. you’re name is paige tico & you’re not dead

yet.

but that’s the point, isn’t it, paige ? )

ii.

so you’re awake. you’re alive. you still have a job to do.

poe was yelling at you earlier, you’re unsure as to why, but his voice is gone now. you’re staring up at a blinking light & you think oh god. because this is where it hurts. this is where you realize you’re not dead, but now would be a good time to be.

pain burns up the entire canvas of your back, twisting across your vertebrae & punishing every breath that rings too desperate for its taste. it’s fine, you don’t need air where you’re going.

you grit your teeth & kick.

the world comes back, even sharper. floating in the air above you a million miles away before slamming into your chest in a wide, conscious burst that hurts. blood trickles down your everything & through the pressure clamping down across your ribs, you kick again. metal beams won’t bend because you want them to. because you need them too. you’re going to have to try harder than that.

( * death is that remote. that ugly little thing that should have been anchored down somewhere instead of left dangling precariously over the edge, blinking at you like the brilliant lights of a first order ships gliding across the snow & ice of hays minor, searching for anyone out after curfew. calm down, mom says, voice crisp even to this day. you’re at the end of your tether, locked in this cradle of steel with your mouth demanding death fall down & meet you at the bottom of all these tombstones. )

you close your eyes. war plays for keeps & your hand has never been full before until you reach up & touch your necklace.

ok, paige. its name is death, just call its name.

so you die again.

( * this time, you blink more than just sleepiness from your lashes. )

iii.

you kick.

the ship rattles.

space groans underneath you & you watch as the little fucker falls & falls & falls until it’s right by your head. yeah, right by your head. it’s waving at you like rose did before you lifted off, already encased in a crystal ball designed to remind people like you how fragile hope really was ( * one day, you’re going to die in that cage called the gunner’s turret. one day, someone’s going to track a beam right through & obliterate you ). you turn your head, more fire, more gasping breaths as you’re starting to realize that this is it.

this is where your story ends.

( * close. rewind. try again. you’re not allowed to give in just like that. )

you have only have your body left so that’s what you fling at this hurdle because nothing else has worked so far. there’s no finch, no nix, no spennie, no rose. you’re on your own, your ship is on fire & you just need to reach just a little bit further. even if you feel your bones cracking underneath as your momentum pushes you into a writhing arc on your stomach. even if your skin is dead & flaking with the exhausted dread of space clinging fiercely to your hands as your arm arcs & drops & catches

a small rectangular box, no larger than your palm with a bright, blinking light singing to the tune of help me.

you press it once & then it all stops.

bombs away.

fresh pain twists down your back & you wiggle your arm underneath you as the ship hisses & clatters to life around you in this hollow tube. you’re staring at the drop zone. eyes more than a little dead, half frozen digits locked tight around your medallion.

you think of a lot of things.

otomok. hue, thanya cobalt, crimson, fossil & those fathiers that you’re never going to be able to see. you think of rose, of course. of how she’s with you now, warm & heavy in your hand because you’re going to die here & you’re going to bring her down with you.

you should close your eyes. you’re not going to want to see this.

iv.

which, you don’t. you really don’t.

( * hey paige, you’re a big girl now. remember to take care of your sister don’t die. )

pulling yourself up the ladder again is a motion so familiar you don’t have to think about it at all. you don’t have to focus on the way your gloves wrap around the metal rungs or where you place your hands so when you push your legs up, they won’t bang into each other like a clumsy sight of blurred movements. your back hurts a lot & some of your body is dead & sinking faster into that state of existence.

it takes you a few moments to realize you’ve skipped a step.

or two.

because you’re staring at nix’s body again & he’s right where you left him. dead. sprawling out on the floor with his head down & helmet full of a burned face.

you’re sorry, you think. you’re sad, you know. but that’s not important right now.

another gli tch in time.

you’re dying a lot more now. blinking heavily & finding yourself in different places. in different positions. in different people. finch is still in the pilot’s seat. you don’t have the heart strength to push him off, so you reach for the controls & look at what you have.

a lot of dead lights stare back.

poe’s still not talking to you.

( * that’s fine. you don’t think you can talk right now anyway. your lungs are all wrong. seized up by this clash of frost & heat that blossoms like spilling blood on the inside of your skin. )

distantly, you’re aware that there is something going on outside you. outside this ship. it’s all so far away though & the control panel is right there. your fingers bump into the levers, sloshing into the buttons & switches until something burns to life through the chattering of your teeth.

you’re calm, you say. you’re calmer than you’ve ever been. all you had to do was die a few times to rid yourself of the messier bits that kept spiking through your veil of control & finally act like the stalwart gunner you were always meant to be.

go home, you do not say for you cannot speak right now. you start tapping across the console, figuring out which still worked & what was beyond your will. you know without looking that finch is listing over the side & in a few second he’s going to tilt over & slap heavily onto the floor.

at least the seat will be free.

your ship starts to move. dazedly, you start to move with it, leaning over because oh, your legs are starting to give all of a sudden but your arms are still strong.

it’s okay, you can stretch.

you can do this.

v.

the noise outside is inside.

the air tastes a lot like ice & it’s all you can do to not lose the tenuous connection you have to life right now. something streaks by the screen, something like a hot burning streak of stubborn insistence for paige, paige, i got you. keep moving forwards. paige, do you copy? just keep going because yelling louder into the static of the universe is how things around here get done.

you miss hays minor. your necklace is fused with your glove & you can feel it trying to eat its way through the material so the pale gold can touch your skin.

ha ysi an st e el makes for a goo d cond u c t or.

you’re not sure how far you have left to go, but you’re dying to find out.

( * it’s okay. you can do this. you’re not a very elegant pilot, but you know your way from point a to point b ).

you shake your head clear of your thoughts & stare resolutely at the dashboard, fingers racing across the yawning gap between here & rose. hurry up, you tell yourself in rose’s voice because that makes it worth more. hurry up so i can see you again.

a smile cracks through your calm.

okay, you think. okay.