Work Text:
Christmas Carols
Singing was something that Omega had always liked doing, even when she was a little girl on Kamino. She had found it fun and relaxing. When she had been younger, she used to hum and sing songs while Nala Se was working or just when Omega had been bored. Nala Se hadn’t liked that and would scold Omega and tell her that she needed to concentrate on her work or at least sit quietly in the corner and study.
But Omega hadn’t liked that, not when she wanted to do something else like singing. But eventually Nala Se would lecture her enough that Omega would stop and try to make her happy. She was the closest she would ever have to a mother after all. She wanted Nala Se to approve of her.
She wanted Nala Se to love her. She wanted to be loved by someone. And she did think that Nala Se loved her as much as she could.
However, things were different now. Omega was with Clone Force 99 and they weren’t as strict as Nala Se. And she knew that her brothers, at least most of them, did love her. Also they let her be creative and they didn’t tell her to be quiet. But she still hadn’t sung around them much.
When she did, it was just humming or singing under her breath and that just would cause them to be quiet. Well except Wrecker who would then sometimes sing too. Crosshair told Wrecker that his singing was a war crime. Omega didn’t think that was true. Wrecker… well… he might not be the best singer, but he was good at so many other things. He was the nicest person ever. And so Crosshair should try and be nicer to him.
Wrecker liked singing and so Omega wanted Wrecker to be able to sing as much as he wanted.
Today, Omega decided that she was going to sing for lots of people at Cid’s parlor since it had an open mic night. Omega hadn’t told anyone yet that she was going to be singing, despite that she had been tempted to more than a few times.
She wanted it to be a surprise.
She hoped she would be good at it. She hoped that her brothers would be proud of her.
As it got closer to the time, she got worried and so she decided that she would ask one of her brothers to sing with her. Even though Crosshair thought that Wrecker was the worst singer in all the Galaxy, Omega didn’t agree. She thought he had a… unique voice that was all Wrecker. And she knew that he would want to join her. He would have a lot of fun.
So she went and found him on their ship before it was time for her to perform. She still had a few more hours.
“Wrecker,” Omega said, smiling at him. She put her hands behind her back for a moment and bounced on the heels of her feet. “Guess what.”
“What?” Wrecker asked.
“I’m going to sing at mic night and you should also,” Omega said. She bit her lip when he didn’t answer right away. Maybe he didn’t want to. “I mean if you think it would be fun, but Crosshair is wrong about your voice. I like it.”
Wrecker paused and then he grinned. “Yes! We’ll do the best. Crosshair is just jealous!”
Omega grinned. She should have known that Wrecker would join her. He was the most fun of all her brothers.
But as the hours passed and they went to Cid’s parlor with their brothers, Omega found herself getting nervous again when it got close to their turn. She and Wrecker had practiced their singing a little bit but still. She had never sung in front of a lot of people before.
Or really anyone.
But she was going to be brave and do this. It didn’t matter if she was afraid. This was what she wanted. She had learned Life Day songs to be festive and it was going to be a lot of fun. But her stomach twisted the closer it to go their names being called. A few times, she thought about telling Wrecker that she had changed her mind. That maybe they should do this a different time.
But she knew that she would always be scared. She needed to be brave. She tried to tell herself that this wasn’t a big deal.
She could do this. After all, she had to do missions. She had been close to dying many times. This should be nothing.
Yet, she was still afraid.
And eventually it was time.
“What?” Hunter asked, when they were called. His eyes had widened slightly. “You two are going to be performing?”
“It appears they are,” Tech said.
Echo didn’t say anything but he nodded.
“Oh, this is going to be great,” Crosshair said as he leaned back in his chair and kept chewing on his toothpick. Earlier he had thrown one on the floor and it looked like Cid wanted to murder him. Really if he did that enough, she might try.
If the two of them ever got in a fight, Omega didn’t know who she thought would win. Obviously, Crosshair was strong, but Cid seemed pretty tough. And some people were afraid of her.
“Hopefully no one will know that I’m with this group. Perhaps, I should go sit somewhere else,” Crosshair said. Because of that when Omega walked past him to get to the stage, she made sure that she “accidentally” stepped on his foot.
He glared at her and muttered something under his breath when that happened.
But Omega didn’t regret it.
When she first got to the front, for a moment, she thought maybe she wouldn’t be able to do this. Nala Se wouldn’t have made her be quiet if she was good at singing, right? No, she would have encouraged her to do it.
But maybe that wasn’t true. Nala Se only cared about scientific things, not art and singing was an art. And it was creative, which also didn’t matter to her. At times, Omega thought Nala Se hadn’t cared about her either, but now she thought she did in her own way and as much as she was able to.
But that didn’t mean she would have encouraged Omega to sing even if she had the best voice in all the Galaxy.
“It’ll be okay,” Wrecker said. “We’re going to do amazing. Crosshair… he’s jealous.”
Omega doubted that, but she still forced herself to nod. And then she did her best to be as brave as she could be. She had gone through so many things already. Singing… it shouldn’t be a big deal after all of them.
It should even be easy.
But it wasn’t. It wasn’t even close to being easy.
Still she did it. Both she and Wrecker did it. At first… she found herself even shaking when they were signing, but then eventually… it was fun. Really fun. And when they finished a few people even clapped.
Yes those people were Hunter, Echo, and Tech but still. Crosshair was covering his face with his hands, but Omega tried to ignore that. She tried to believe that what Wrecker said was right.
That Crosshair was just jealous.
And it wasn’t like anyone had been booing her. It could have been a lot worse. People could have been booing them and telling them that they were committing crimes by singing, but that hadn’t happened.
So they must have done okay.
“You have guts, kid,” Cid said as she came over to them. She chuckled.
“Thank you?” Omega said, even though she would have thought most people wouldn’t find this funny. And wouldn’t say that they had guts when the performance was over.
“No problem,” Cid said and then she reached out and ruffled Omega’s hair when they had gone back to their table. One of the regulars came and gave Omega a holiday hat. She loved it. Sometimes Omega felt like the people who visited the parlor were like her extended family. She cared about them too! “I admit you are better than this one here.” She gestured to Wrecker.
Wrecker didn’t say anything at least not to Cid, but he hugged Omega and spun her around. “We did great. We should do this every open mic night.”
“Maybe people will even come to see us,” Omega said, getting excited at the idea. Yes, people came to play against her at Sabaac but she wanted them to love her singing too, especially since singing was so much fun.
And she thought that she and Wrecker sounded really good. Yes, they could probably practice a bit, but they would do that.
“You really want to—” Crosshair tried to say, but didn’t get the chance to finish.
“Did you like it, Hunter?” Omega asked, not letting Crosshair finish because he would be negative.
Hunter smiled. “It was really festive, Omega,” Hunter said. “It was perfect since Life Day is coming up.”
She grinned. That was good enough for her. And he had to have liked it if he said that it was festive.
“I just recommend that you all don’t quit your day job,” Cid said to Hunter. “These two don’t have a future in music.”
Omega did her best to ignore that though. It had been festive and now she had a nice hat. And it couldn’t have been that bad, right?
No, it had to be good.
Even if Crosshair and Cid were acting this way. They could just be this way at times.
She knew that she and Wrecker had done well. And even if they hadn’t, they would do better later.
After all they had all the time in the Galaxy.
Right?