Chapter Three - We Didn't Start The Fire

5 YEARS, 10 MONTHS BBSB

"'Ehh' is not an acceptable answer." Poe said adamantly.

"Yes it is!"

"Not when my question was 'Is this going to explode?'"

"Technicalities." Auralee shrugged from her crouched position on the ground and continued to make some tweaks here and there. Around a half hour ago, Poe had knocked on her door on behalf of a member of his squadron and asked her to take a look at one of the X-Wing engines. Apparently on their last recon mission, Sivan noticed something wrong with his ship and after looking closer, realised he could smell a strange burning coming from the engine. Flying back as soon - and as quickly - as possible, Poe immediately came to Auralee's quarters to ask for her assistance.

And so, there they were; an engineer and a pilot staring down at a pile of smoking metal and other miscellaneous components that were already beginning to smoke on the grass outside. Auralee knew that it was most likely unsalvageable, but she didn't want to give up right away.

"This damn thing," she mumbled to herself as a bead of sweat made it's way down her forehead from all the work.

"Listen, Aura, maybe we should leave it," Poe leaned over and put a hand on Auralee's arm. "It's not safe."

At his touch, Auralee turned her head and let her gaze fall onto his face. Poe shuffled uneasily. "What?"

"You called me Aura," she stated, the beginnings of a smug smile beginning to show on her lips. "You've never done that before."

The pilot rolled his eyes playfully. "Yeah, so? I like it. Don't you?"

Auralee nodded. "It's nice."

"You know what's not nice?" Poe asked with a raise of his brow. "That."

Following his pointed finger, Auralee jumped back as a flame burst out of the metal hunk of junk she was attempting (also known as 'failing') to fix and stumbled into Poe's legs.

"Holy shit!"

Instantly, Poe bent down to grab Auralee by her upper arms and pull her into a standing position and away from the flames.

"It's only a little bit on fire," Auralee said from her position behind Poe who had an arm out in front of her to stop her from getting any closer to the burning engine. "Maybe we could still use it?" One look from Poe stopped her from continuing.

"Stay back," he said and stripped off his jacket.

"What are you doing?" asked Auralee as she watched Poe inch closer to the blaze.

Poe lifted one shoulder in a shrugging motion. "Gotta stop this somehow." Without another word, Poe quickly threw his jacket on top of the engine to smother the fire and the pair watched anxiously as the flames slowly petered out.

They were safe.

For about 10 seconds.

"Commander?" called a voice that pulled both Poe and Auralee away from the mess they had accidentally created. "What's going on here?"

"Uh, everything is fine, General," Poe said quickly, stepping in front of the engine in a lame attempt to hide it from his superior. "Just a slight problem with one of the X-Wing engines."

"What kind of problem?"

"I may have set the engine on fire?" Auralee supplied with a slight wince. "I mean, I didn't. Totally. I promise... But hypothetically, that's a thing you should probably be aware of."

A ghost of a smile showed on General Organa's face. "You call a fire a 'slight problem', Commander?"

Laughing nervously, Poe reached up to scratch the back of his neck. "See, when we were out on our mission earlier, Sivan thought his engine smelled kinda funny so I asked Auralee to take a look at it when we got back... Turns out it's kind of beyond repair."

"I noticed," General Organa said with a nod towards the still smoking pile behind the pilot. "3PO, do you mind?"

"Not at all, mistress," C3PO - who Auralee hadn't even noticed at first since he had been surprisingly quiet - said, making his way to the engine. "Excuse me, Commander Dameron?" Poe turned to face the droid. "Would you mind removing your jacket, please?"

Nodding in realisation, Poe grabbed his jacket from the wreckage. Surprisingly, it wasn't too badly damaged. It had a burn mark under one arm, a slight hole in a place or two but overall, it could've been worse.

As C3PO got to work on removing what used to be part of Sivan's ship, General Organa spoke. "Maybe you two should be getting out of here. We'll get a new engine soon."

"Thank you, General," Poe said just as Auralee mumbled "Sorry, General."

With a small nod of his head, Poe led the way as he and Auralee both quickly made their exit.

General Organa watched the pair leave with a small smile and a shake of her head.

"Kids."

Once Auralee and Poe had passed the threshold of the Resistance base, the duo began to laugh.

"Did that really just happen?" Poe asked with a grin. "Did we really just cause a fire and then get away with it?"

"General Organa is a very nice lady," Auralee replied honestly. "I think we definitely owe her one now."

"I'd say you owed me one, too."

"What?" Auralee asked with a small frown. "Why?"

"Look at my poor jacket!" Poe held up his pilot jacket for Auralee to see. "What did it ever do to you?"

"I could get Zella to fix that for you," Auralee offered. "Though it was kind of yourown fault."

Poe smirked. "Would you rather I left you there to catch fire?"

"I'm not saying that it wasn't heroic, Commander," she joked. "I'm just saying that you willingly damaged that jacket."

Poe paused in thought before pulling the jacket back on anyway. "How about we go grab Cipher and get some food instead of arguing?" Without waiting for an answer, Poe continued walking to Auralee's room.

His companion grinned as she quickened her pace to catch up with him. "You're just changing the subject because you know I'm right."

He scoffed. "I am not."

"Are too."

CI-4 had been glad when Auralee and Poe had come to get him back from where he was left in his owner's room. When Poe had asked Auralee for help she had told CI-4 to wait behind as she wouldn't be gone for long. Looking back on it CI-4 should've known that wouldn't be true.

But now, everything was fine, and he was sitting happily with Auralee and her friend Poe as they grabbed some food from the cafeteria and sat down at a table with their trays full of food that looked rather questionable in the eyes of the droid.

"Do you really need all of that?" Auralee questioned with her eyebrows raised in reference to the food on Poe's plate.

"Do you really need to ask?" He grinned as he shovelled a piece of panna cake into his mouth.

The engineer snorted in laughter before taking a tentative bite of her fried crispic. Poe smiled at her.

"So, tell me," he said after swallowing his mouthful of food. "Is that how all of your jobs go? Because if so, maybe I should ask someone else to make that droid for me. I'd hate for it to catch fire, after all."

Auralee rolled her eyes. "That was a one off, I swear. I learned to do what I do from my dad and he was pretty damn good at his job."

"He must have been if even General Organa was impressed by what you can do." Poe commented as he continued to eat. "Where is your dad? Back on your home planet?"

Auralee shook her head. "He died when I was fifteen. I kind of raised myself from that point on, along with some occasional help from Zella. She was my neighbour for years."

"Damn it." Poe let his fork fall onto his plate. "I'm sorry, Aura, I had no idea."

"Of course you didn't," Auralee replied casually, moving on to her second piece of crispic. "It's okay. I've had a long time to deal with it."

"What about your mom?" Poe queried.

"She passed away when I was a kid - maybe around three?" she guessed. "I don't remember much about her."

"The people here; they'll become your new family," Poe stated kindly. "That's what happened with me."

"With you?" Auralee asked.

Poe nodded. "My mom died when I was eight. She was the one who taught me to fly."

"How about your dad?"

"I never saw much of him," he explained. "His job kept him pretty busy."

"Well, if it helps," Auralee began with a small smile. "I'm glad to be part of this new family."

Poe chuckled softly. "Yeah, I'm glad you are, too."

CI-4 beeped questioningly.

"Yes, Cipher, you're a part of the family, too." Poe answered.

"And once your droid is finished, it can join us." Auralee added. "Though, that may be a while."

"Oh, yeah, how's it going with that?" Poe continued to eat his panna cake as the conversation moved on. "Made any progress?"

"No, not really." Auralee sighed. "So far, your droid is just a circuit board. I was actually hoping to make some more progress today but then this pilot guy - you've probably never heard of him - asked me to take a look at some engine and well..." she shrugged. "How could I deny him my help?"

Her words caught Poe off guard and he laughed through his mouthful of food. "Damn that pilot," he said. "I hope he at least thanked you for your services."

"You know what? He didn't," Auralee acted flabbergasted. "Instead he just blamed me for the fire that ensued," she scoffed. "The nerve."

"I cannot believe he would do that," Poe said, feigning anger. "Next time you see him, let me know. I'll give him a piece of my mind."

"I think I can handle him myself," she replied. "But if all else fails, I'll be sure to come to you." CI-4 turned its head to look at Auralee.

"Well, I'll come to Cipher and then you." She corrected.

"The droid comes first?" Poe thought for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, that seems fair. Speaking of, I thought of something I'd like you to do with my droid. If you can."

Auralee gestured for him to continue as she finished the last of her meal.

"I don't want it to call me 'master'. I know that's kind of a thing that all droids do but I don't want that. Our relationship should be based on mutual respect, not obligation."

Auralee smiled.

"I can do that," she agreed. "Cipher here doesn't call me 'mistress', do you, buddy?" No, ma'am, the droid beeped which made Auralee roll her eyes. "And he's never called me ma'am in his life until now."

"I think he's just trying to make you look bad." Grinned Poe.

"He's lucky I love him." With a pointed glance at CI-4, Auralee stood up and grabbed her tray, throwing any remnants of her meal in the trash can and placing the tray with the rest of the dirty dishes. Poe followed suit with CI-4 at his feet.

"What are your plans for the rest of the day, then?" Poe asked.

The girl shrugged as the trio left the cafeteria together. "I still have to fix the screen of a datapad and then I'll probably keep working on your BB unit."

"Mind if I join?" Poe offered.

"Sure. Why not?"