Chapter Text
While definitely not the most dangerous mission he’d ever done, Poe Dameron was starting to think that this one might have been the most challenging.
Morale had been...not good after Crait. Pleas for help went unanswered, friends remained silent, and yet, still--the Resistance was being reborn. They had a base other than the Falcon. More beings had come to join them--there were still people willing to stand up to tyranny.
And then Poe had his genius idea.
He knew that the holiday celebrations would be muted at best. So many of them had lost family, or were far away from family, or any number of other tragedies, but that didn’t mean they should let that oppressive feeling hang over them any more than they were going to tolerate oppression anywhere else. Obviously, buying gifts for everyone in the Resistance would be too expensive.
A secret gift-exchange, though?
Totally doable.
It had actually been C-3P0 who suggested they call it Bothan Buddies--after all, Bothans had the best spy network and covertly getting gifts to your assigned buddy was part of the mission.
The grins he’d watched sneak up on faces when he’d debriefed them all in the command central had been completely worth it. He and BB-8 had taken the time to record every name and then BB-8 had shuffled them to their assigned Bothan Buddy. BB-8 had delivered the news individually to each member of the Resistance and then promptly deleted the file from his databanks.
A list of everyone in the Resistance was...not something that anyone wanted to leave around.
The rules had been simple enough. Get the present to your buddy without them noticing. All presents had to be in before they shared their holiday meal. (Ration packs, sure, but at least they’d eat together as family.) At the meal, everyone would guess who their buddy was...and the truth would come out. Happy holidays, put a bow on it and call it good.
BB-8 had matched Rey to Poe, and he’d taken up the challenge with the same tenacity that he took up everything with. Rey, after all, had probably never even had holiday celebrations in her life, so Poe definitely wanted to make it worth it for her.
What did a person get for a budding Jedi? He knew he could have asked Leia, but he still didn’t want to mention the Jedi at all after Luke’s sacrifice, even though he was pretty sure she’d picked up Rey’s Jedi training.
He’d spent so much time fretting about whether the entire operation was going to go off smoothly--after all, he didn’t want anyone to go without a present, that wouldn’t be good--that he only had a two days left to figure out what he was going to do for the girl. Today, the eve of the eve of the event. Tomorrow, the eve of the event. The day after tomorrow, the event itself.
He’d thought about asking Finn, but then again, the point was to keep your Bothan Buddy a secret. So he’d refrained from that too.
Speaking of Rey, he noticed her coming out for her morning tea. Maybe he could start a conversation with her, somehow figure out what might make her happy.
Finn was already with her, and they were talking animatedly about something. Poe picked up the caf he’d made for himself before and moseyed his way over to them.
“Last night, they weren’t there, and this morning, they were!” Rey was saying, holding up what appeared to be a small tray of sweets. “And I sleep on the Falcon with the door to my room locked, so I have no idea how they pulled it off.”
“Pulled what off?” Poe blinked, looking down at the tray of tiny sweets. Finn was helping himself to another.
“My Bothan Buddy,” she grinned, holding out the tray. “They somehow snuck these into my room last night. I’ve never had anything like them--you have to try one, Poe.”
Wait, her what?
“Your buddy brought those to you,” Poe repeated.
“I mean, it had to have been them,” Rey shrugged, popping another one of the pastries into her mouth whole. He wasn’t sure who looked more disturbed by that--himself or Finn. “Who else would break into my locked room and leave me a bunch of sweets?”
She looked so happy, shoving another pastry whole into her mouth. Finn reached over and wiped the powdered sugar off her cheek.
Someone else thought Rey was their Bothan Buddy.
That would make all the numbers wrong, which meant someone was going without a present.
No.
Not on Poe’s watch.
/////
“BB, seriously, are you sure you didn’t mess up the algorithm?” Poe hissed to the droid, glancing around the hallway to make sure no one else was listening in.
BB-8 beeped an indignant trill. Of course he’d done the algorithm right, it wasn’t like it was complicated to match everyone up.
“Do you still have the master file? I just need to be sure--”
The proud whirr that came from his droid confirmed his worst fears. Of course BB-8 had deleted the file completely, just like he had promised Poe he would do.
“What’s going on?”
Poe jumped and whirled around, but it was only Finn.
“You scared the crap out of me!” Poe frowned. “You can’t go sneaking up on man like that!”
“Sorry?” Finn’s face scrunched up like he did when he was confused. Poe liked that. Of course, there wasn’t much about the man that Poe didn’t appreciate. “Is something wrong?”
He debated keeping it a secret and then sighed, plopping down by BB-8. After a moment, Finn slid down the wall to join him.
“I don’t know who gave Rey those sweets,” he said.
“That’s kind of the point?”
“Let me--let me get to the point here,” Poe took a deep breath. “I am supposed to be Rey’s buddy, and I did not leave those pastries there. Hell, I don’t even know where on this base someone even managed to find those!”
“So someone else is giving gifts to Rey?” Finn paused. “That means…”
“That Rey’s buddy is not giving a gift to the person they were assigned, which means someone’s going to get left out,” Poe frowned. “I don’t want anyone to get left out, Finn,” he admitted, voice softer than he would have liked. “I don’t want to mess it up again.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Finn said, standing up and reaching down to Poe. He took the man’s hand gratefully and allowed him to pull him to his feet. “Me, you, BB-8. We’ll solve the mystery.”
“Thanks, man,” Poe smiled. “You have no idea how much I appreciate it.”
“It’s the least I can do,” Finn smiled. Poe liked that smile too. It suited him.
And honestly, so did him growing out his hair.
Poe almost liked it more than he liked his own.
Now that was saying something.