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It was an overcast day, the green grass of the soccer fields left oddly muted in the half-light. A chilly autumn breeze nipped, here and there, but Hunter barely felt it. On his feet, he was rapt on the action happening further down the field. He only registered the movement of his hair, pushing curls out of his eyes so he could watch Omega make her way down the field to the defending team’s goal.
“Go Omega!” Wrecker shouted, bellowing above the other cheering parents and families.
Hunter stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled, giving it all he had, and some of the defending team’s families, on the other side of the pitch, stopped watching their kids to turn and gawk at him.
“Warn a motherfucker next time,” Crosshair groused, still sitting in his camping chair, cautiously peeling his hands off of his ears. He scowled up at Hunter’s unapologetic, offhand gesture.
Omega dribbled the ball, kicking back and forth, just like Rex had showed her—two other players closed up in her path— Omega’s little blonde head swiveled, looking for an opening.
“Come on,” Hunter urged under his breath, “come on…”
Just like she’d been practicing in the backyard for two weeks, Omega faked right, then passed the ball to Hera, running along at her left. Hunter and the rest of the spectators cheered as they broke through the midfield, Hunter’s chest full to bursting with a wild, feral kind of pride.
The team faffed around the goal for a little bit. Over on the sideline by the substitution box, Ahsoka cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Focus up! Focus up!” Rex, at her side, was a little more reserved, hawk-like, watching the proceedings with his arms crossed over his chest, almost covering the COACH label on the front of his jersey, matching with Ahsoka.
Hera kicked the ball to Omega. Clever girl, she popped the ball off the top of her foot, juked left, then made her way right—the two kids guarding her fell back—she had an opening, darting into the blind side of the last defenseman between her and the goal—
The kid, not even looking, turned blindly towards Omega, and his elbow connected hard with Omega’s temple. For a breathless moment, time seemed frozen at the moment of contact. Elbow, temple, the soccer ball just kissing the toe of Omega’s cleat, foot extended.
Then she collapsed.
Full body-weight, loose-limbed, she just dropped . Hunter was breathless, thoughtless. One second he was there, standing, watching her hit the ground in a tangle of limbs, and the next thing he knew he was kneeling at her side.
Ahsoka was there too, with one of the referees. Someone was saying something to Hunter, something about the field and giving her space, but he just knelt there and said Omega’s name again and again with increasing urgency as she stirred, eyelids fluttering.
When she groaned, squinting her eyes open, Hunter exhaled, full-body relief knocking the wind out of him.
“Did we get the point?” Omega asked, voice groggy, and Hunter might have laughed, if he didn’t feel like he was facing down a firing squad. Everything but Omega’s confused, wincing face was blurry and numb; he hadn’t reacted this badly since those days early on in the custody agreement, when Omega had a bad brush with a snake on their cousin Cut’s sprawling ranch property. Almost two years ago. Lifetimes. Not long at all.
“Come on, let’s get you up…” Ahsoka, with Hunter adding unnecessary help, got Omega up onto her feet, where she swayed a little between their hands. All the rest of the kids had taken knees, Hera in particular with a big, shocked expression of concern, her hands over her mouth. Hunter barely registered Omega’s other best friend, Numa, a little more distant but still visibly shaking. Could be in fear, could be in anger. With Numa, either was possible.
They ushered Omega off the field, her protests still fuzzy. “I’m alright,” she said, trying to elbow Hunter off. He held on tighter. “Really, I don’t even feel it.”
They made it to the substitution box, where Rex and another ref were waiting. “Here, let me take a look,” Rex said, kneeling down by Omega’s side. He carefully moved some of Omega’s hair away from her temple, and Omega winced, flinching. Rex dropped his hand. “You’ll have a good shiner, that’s for sure,” he told her. His eyes flickered up towards Hunter. If he wasn’t mistaken, his cousin tried to school a little grin. “How’re you holding up, Sarge?”
“What?” Hunter snapped.
Rex held his hands up, palms out. “Nothing.”
“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” Omega insisted, lying like a log, “I’ll sit my penalty and I’ll go back in.”
“Penalty?” Ahsoka questioned.
Omega stared. “Did I… didn’t I get a card?” she asked, eyes flickering between them all.
Hunter felt like he was going to be sick. Her fluttering, unfocused eyes, confusion around the moment, the way she was still swaying, back and forth—“She has a concussion,” he said, hearing his voice like it was coming from somewhere outside of his body.
“What?!” Omega squeaked. “I don’t!”
“Hunter,” Rex started to say. Hunter ignored him, turning to where the rest of their household were hovering, like he expected them to be; even Crosshair stood just on the other side of the line, watching the proceedings with a blank mask of an expression.
“Get Omega’s kit,” he ordered in Rank Voice. “I’m taking Omega to the clinic to get her head checked out.” Wrecker booked it.
“I don’t have a concussion!” Omega protested.
Rex and Ahsoka convened for a moment before Ahsoka split off to talk to the ref. Rex looked uncomfortable, rubbing the back of his head. “Even if you don’t, kid, it’s policy. Head injuries have to sit out.”
The ref nodded at Ahsoka, blew the whistle, and started to get the kids moving, pulling Hera for a penalty shot. Omega’s color was rising and fading as her head swiveled, trying to keep Rex, Hunter, and the field within her line of sight and failing.
“I’ve been practicing my penalty shots,” she said, “ please , Rex, I don’t feel bad at all, honest, I swear…”
“Sorry, kid.”
Wrecker popped up with Omega’s duffle all loaded, looking every inch as nervous as Hunter felt.
“Come on,” Hunter said to Omega, “let’s go.”
Omega was twisted around, desperately watching as Hera lined up for her penalty shot. Numa wasn’t watching her teammate, looking over her shoulder at Omega. Hunter said her name again to try and get her attention, but she ignored him. He said it a third time, sternly.
“Gimme a second!” she said over her shoulder, and he did not like her tone.
“Omega, we have to go.” Every minute they waited, a clock was ticking down, somewhere—standing still, all Hunter’s mind could do was run down the lists of all the complications from even the most minor head injuries—combat medic sheets, the sights of black-eyed privates with nosebleeds because they didn’t secure their helmets tightly enough—his own grey matter was pulsing, threatening nothing but endless agony if he didn’t get to his migraine meds he kept in the car.
When he'd been suffering through the steps to get an official diagnosis, one of the things the a nurse over at the VA had told him (under the table, a hallway conversation in between CT scans), was that he had to remember that whatever the hell was wrong with his brain, whatever the reason was that it kept pretending to kill him for kicks—at least it wasn’t contagious. At least he wasn’t a danger to his family. At least.
It’d felt like relieving truth, at the time. Now, looking down at his little sister, it felt like a sick kind of long-burning promise. Smoldering away to nothing.
Hera missed the shot and Omega bit back a groan.
“Omega, we are leaving,” Hunter ordered, and got a hand around her bicep, tugging.
She stumbled back half a step, taken off guard. “I can stay the rest of the game,” she told him, eyes big and begging. “Please, there’s only twenty minutes left and we’re tied—”
He stood there and stared down at her, and the way she crumpled told him that he was not hiding his burning red-hot anger very well at all. “Last time I’m saying this,” he growled. “You were unconscious. We are leaving. Need to get you to a doctor.”
Her eyes widened. “I don’t need to go to a doctor,” she babbled, digging her heels in. “I was just—I was just surprised, I wasn’t unconscious, I feel fine!”
“Hunter,” Echo tried to say.
“Omega, I will pick you up and carry you out of here if you don’t do as I say and move,” Hunter said, voice forcibly even.
For a moment, silence. Omega stared up at him, eyes flickering over his expression, and then—
It didn’t crumple. It hardened. “What’s wrong with you?!” she burst out. “I’m telling you, I’m fine! Why are you freaking out like this!”
“I’m doing what’s best for you,” he snapped. “Whether you like it or not, it’s what's going to happen, Omega.”
“You sound like Mother!” Omega snapped.
An awful, cold moment of silence followed her outburst. Hunter was aware of all the eyes currently on him: his brothers, and Rex, and Omega, red-faced and panting with frustration. Something awful and cold slid down his spine, but he forced some iron into his bloodstream, holding his shoulders slightly back.
“Either you follow me out of here,” Hunter ground out between clenched teeth. “Or I carry you. Your choice. One.”
“Hunter—”
He ignored Tech. “Two.”
Omega worked her jaw, checking over her shoulder as the enemy team got control of the ball.
“Thr—”
“Fine!” Omega shouted. “Fine! ”
Before he could reprimand her for her tone, she stomped past him, and when Wrecker tried to touch her shoulder, she flinched out of his grasp. “Leave me alone!” she shouted at him, and Wrecker’s face fractured into a despondent look.
He numbly handed the duffle bag over to Hunter when he passed. “Sarge…”
The military nickname did not improve Hunter’s mood. “We’ll meet you back at the house,” he said, and took off after Omega. If any of the rest tried to follow him, they all decided to fall back. By the time he reached the truck on Omega’s heels, the crowd was cheering for something—probably the other team scoring, if the state of affairs when they left was any indication.
Omega elbowed out of his helping hand, booting herself up into the truck, still red-faced and glaring at nothing. Hunter tossed her bag into the truck bed and got behind the wheel. He hesitated for a moment, then leaned over Omega to get to the pill case in the glove box, popping one of his migraine meds and swallowing it dry.
They got on the road. Some of Hunter’s immediate anger started to dissipate.
Omega, on the other hand, just coiled up tighter and tighter as they went. Usually, when she was in the front seat of the truck with him, she liked to swivel around the old radio’s dial-in stations, or pick around the detritus in the glove box. Making idle chatter that was better to listen to than the music over the airwaves.
Now she was silent. Her legs were drawn up, and she had her arms crossed over her chest. She glared forwards, at nothing, working her jaw.
Force, but she looked like Crosshair.
The comparison did Hunter’s mounting anxiety no favors. He cleared his throat.
“Omega,” he said, and inhaled to speak further when she cut him off.
“I don’t want to talk,” she ground out. “Since you won’t listen to me,” she added in a surly tone.
“Omega,” he said again, harshly, “I am your guardian. I make the decisions about what’s best for you.”
“Whatever.” Whoever taught her that word, Hunter was going to press formal charges. She aimed her head to glare out of the window, and yeah, there was a definite bruise starting to bloom over Omega’s skin. It must hurt, no matter what she said.
Hunter blew out a slow, evening breath. He started to pull into the parking lot for urgent care—better wait times than the emergency room, and he knew from past experience that they could handle head trauma. He put the car in park and Omega again beat him to speaking.
“I hate it here,” she said to the window. “I don’t want to go in.”
Slowly, considering his words, Hunter unclipped his seatbelt. He knew that Omega hated hospitals—had good reason to. She’d gotten better, over the past few years, could stand to sit in the waiting room for her yearly checkups without strangling his hand to death. Soccer had ironically helped; she was required to get a physical to be cleared to play, and with the promise of the sport on the other side she practically skipped into the office, now.
“We need the doctor to look at your head,” he said, as gently as he could manage. “You—”
“I’m fine!” she shouted, voice cracking, and before Hunter could react, Omega untangled herself from her seatbelt and bolted out of the car. Hunter managed to follow her, grabbing the keys. Omega stood, in her cleats and jersey, by the clinic’s doors, glaring down at her toes, hands curled up in little fists.
Conceding that he wasn’t going to get anything more out of her, Hunter went over to the doors and tried to put a hand on her shoulder; she shrugged out of his grip and walked ahead of him into the waiting room.
The silence of waiting to get called back was agony.
Eventually they did get brought back behind the counter, ushered to an exam room on the first floor. Omega, shrugging off Hunter’s hand like his touch burned her, climbed up onto the exam table of her own power. For all her glaring, her dangling legs were cute. Under any other circumstance, Hunter would have tried to squeeze her knee, make her laugh, but he held back.
The doctor was a middle-aged man, thick in the waist, with thinning hair. He introduced himself to both of them, and immediately located the issue in the bruise darkening over Omega’s temple. He had her tilt her head. For half a second, Hunter was worried that she wouldn’t follow the request, but she begrudgingly bared that side of her head to the doctor’s careful eye.
“How bad does it hurt?” the doctor asked.
“It doesn’t.”
“Omega.”
“It doesn’t,” she insisted, glaring at Hunter.
“If you don’t check your attitude—”
“Alright,” the doctor gently interrupted. “Mr. Fett, can I speak to you in the hallway?”
Steaming, Hunter followed him out into the sterile hallway.
“Teenagers,” was the first thing the doctor said, which surprised and mollified Hunter in equal measure.
“She only just turned thirteen,” he pointed out, weakly trying to resist classifying his baby sister as a teenager. There was a terrifying thought.
“Even better,” the doctor said. “I sense there’s something else underlying this visit?”
“She has a concussion,” Hunter said testily.
“I don’t mean as a reason,” the doctor continued, blithely ignoring Hunter’s tone. “It seems like the young lady isn’t thrilled to be here.”
“You could say that,” Hunter scoffed.
The doctor eyed him. “I think she might be a little more forthcoming if I examined her with a nurse present.”
Hunter frowned. “What could a nurse do?”
The doctor looked at him.
“Oh,” Hunter said, face heating up. He was getting asked to go wait in the waiting room. “She doesn’t like being alone at the doctor’s,” he said, far too quickly.
The doctor arched an eyebrow. “Let’s go see how she feels about it,” he said.
Hunter could imagine, wincing. He trailed after the man back into the examination room, Omega’s look getting stormy again just at the sight of him. His chest twinged painfully.
“Omega,” the doctor asked, “would you be okay if your brother waited outside? I’ll go fetch a female nurse, so you’ll be comfortable.”
The first time Hunter had brought Omega to the doctor’s office for a checkup, a kindly nurse had asked Omega the same question, and Omega had fairly started trembling, holding tight to Hunter’s hand. He’d faced the wall while she changed into the paper gown, then sat next to her on the exam table, holding her fingers as tightly as he dared.
That felt like lifetimes ago. Omega pressed her lips into a line and said, “That’s perfect.”
Numbly, Hunter let the doctor usher him back out into the waiting room.
The minutes ticked by. Unfeeling. Hunter stared at the wall, doing all he could to keep regret from creeping in.
When the doctor appeared, Hunter leapt up and beelined for him.
“How is she?” he asked, trying not to sound too demanding.
“Well, first things first, she’s definitely concussed.”
Hunter felt numb.
“What we recommend in these cases is mental rest—no screens, books, or anything that would occupy her mind. Naps and sleep, naps and sleep. Give her some over-the-counter pain medication if she asks for it, and be prepared for some nausea and dizziness. If it hasn’t cleared up by Monday, keep her home from school and make an appointment for your primary care doctor to take a look at her.”
Hunter stood there. Blinked.
“That’s it?” he asked.
The doctor nodded. “That’s it,” he said. “We also don’t recommend you give her any caffeine—old wive’s tale, so long as she’s not too nauseous, you can let her sleep without checking on her. Only if you see a difference in her normal sleeping habits, nodding off at odd times, reports of sleep paralysis, should you be concerned.”
“You’re not going to take her back for a scan? An x-ray? Anything?”
“Mr. Fett, I see cases like this every week. High-impact sports run a risk of this sort of thing happening. It’s completely normal. If I thought your sister was in any danger, I would order such tests. But I also wouldn’t want to force her through them unnecessarily.”
“But—just to be sure—”
“You could go to your primary care doctor and request a CT-scan, if you think that is truly necessary for your peace of mind.” Hunter felt a momentary thrill of potential victory that was then swiftly quashed. “But in my professional opinion, in all likelihood, she only has a minor concussion, and there's no need for anything more intrusive than this.”
Part of Hunter wanted to hit the ground in relief. The other half was clinging desperately to panic. “Even minor concussions can have complications,” he pointed out. He wished Tech was there to help reel off examples.
The doctor was unimpressed. “Like I said, Mr. Fett, if you see prolonged signs of concussion, or a worsening of her symptoms—mainly nausea, dizziness, or abnormal sleeping habits, or a sharp increase of pain, you can bring her into the emergency room.”
“But—”
“Mr. Fett,” the doctor interrupted him, frowning, “are you well?”
“What?!”
“Are you experiencing shortness of breath? Any numbness in your fingertips? Increased heart rate?”
Hunter forced out an awful noise, halfway between a growl and a laugh. “I’m not having a panic attack!”
“I see this sort of thing often, in concerned parents.”
Like any time someone pointed out the very real fact that he was functionally Omega’s parent, Hunter’s stomach swooped. Oddly enough it helped to ground him a little in the absurdity of the situation, of his own aimless rage.
The doctor just kept talking. “I can assure you with all the confidence I have that as long as you let Omega rest, and mind her symptoms, she will be back to normal by Monday.”
Hunter stood there. Like an idiot.
The doctor present a clipboard with papers. “If you like, I can give her a painkiller. Sign here and you can both head home to rest.”
The both was not lost on Hunter. He jabbed his signature onto the dotted line and the doctor disappeared. He reappeared a few minutes later with Omega, shoulders slumped and listless. She didn’t meet Hunter’s eyes, trailed behind him out of the clinic towards the car.
“Omega,” he started to say, “are you…?”
“I wanna go home,” she mumbled.
He could do that much for her. They drove home in silence, Hunter feeling his panic and anger ebb away by degrees—leaving stomach-churning shame and regret in its place.
The whole rest of the house was there, and waiting. Omega kicked her cleats off on the porch, not pausing to line them up properly like she always did, and slumped into the house.
Wrecker and Tech had been pacing. Fantastic. They froze as soon as Omega appeared, Hunter closing the front door behind her. She didn’t pause, didn’t acknowledge them, just made for the stairs.
“I’m going to bed,” she announced listlessly to the room. “Don’t bother me.”
“Hey,” Wrecker rumbled, “kid…”
Ignoring him, Omega went up the stairs.
An awful silence descended.
“Nice work,” Crosshair drawled from the living room doorway. “Real top-shelf parenting there, Hunt.”
Ignoring him, Hunter silently elbowed through the crowd towards his own bedroom on the ground floor. He lay down on his bed and let himself wallow for a good few minutes. Then, he started to compose and re-compose possible things he could say to Omega, to the whole rest of them.
At one point, Echo came by and tried to lecture him about keeping his temper, but evidently ire turned to pity as Echo left him alone to go start dinner.
When Echo called out that dinner was ready, Hunter dragged himself over into the kitchen.
“You look awful,” Tech told him. Sharpest of the bunch, couldn’t get anything by him.
Hunter grunted a monosyllable. Dinner was some spicy lentil soup with dark green bobbing bits of foliage, courtesy of Cut and Suu Lawquane and their massive home garden.
Omega didn’t appear.
They all picked at their food, listlessly, for a few minutes. Wrecker was the first to break, tossing down his spoon with a clatter.
“I’ll go bring her some dinner,” he announced, and before anyone could reply, he snatched up a bowl with a spoon and high-tailed it upstairs. The silence he left in his wake was tense. Hunter avoided his brothers’ eyes and focused on mechanically taking bites of his food.
Fifteen, twenty minutes later, Wrecker came slowly back down the stairs. The relaxed hold of his shoulders told Hunter that Omega had apologized for yelling at him, but the minor relief that brought evaporated as Wrecker placed the still-full bowl of soup back down on the table.
“Said she wasn’t hungry,” he explained in an undertone. Hunter closed his eyes.
Hunter escaped Echo or Tech trying to talk to him, booking it to his room after dinner to change into his pajamas and brush his teeth in the downstairs bathroom. Staring at his face in the mirror over the sink—big stupid tattoo and all—he sighed. “Fuck,” he told himself. “How the hell are you gonna fix this?”
His reflection had no answer.
“What would Ninety-nine do?” Hunter asked himself.
“He’d stop hogging the bathroom,” Crosshair said through the door.
Hunter opened the door, frowning at Crosshair’s languid posture. “Eavesdropping?”
“Tactical reconnaissance,” Crosshair replied. He jerked his chin. “She’s thirteen, Hunter. You were awful at that age, too.”
“Pot, kettle,” Hunter said grimly, gesturing between them.
“I didn’t smoke pot till I was fourteen, so at least you have that to look forward to.” Crosshair clapped Hunter on the arm with a complete lack of sympathy while he stood there, frozen in contemplative shock. “Get out of my way.”
Hunter got out of his way.
Crosshair closed himself up in the bathroom and the water started running. Oddly enough, Crosshair’s words were comforting. Thirteen year olds were thirteen year olds. He’d been one himself, once, though he hated to remember it. He got through that. He could get through this with Omega.
Oddly buoyed, he made the rash decision to go upstairs to her bedroom. He hated the idea of going to bed with things still in the air. And if he knew his little sister, she’d hate it, too.
The line under her door was dark.
“Omega,” Hunter said to her bedroom door. He knocked lightly, too. “It’s Hunter. Can I come in?”
No response.
Frowning, Hunter rapped his knuckles on wood again. “Omega?” he said, leaning his ear to the wood to try and hear her reply.
No response.
Opening a closed door without permission was a high crime in their house, considering how they were all raised. Well. He was already in the doghouse. Hunter tightened his hand on the doorknob, gave Omega another ten-count, and at zero, cracked the door open.
“Omega,” he whispered into the crack. “Sorry, I’m coming in…”
After another few seconds, he did just that, slipping into the dark room and letting the door click shut behind him. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.
A clear lump was Omega, laying under the blankets in bed, her back to the door. Perhaps he might have thought she was sleeping, but he could tell by the stiff line of her shoulders, the preternatural stillness of her, that she was pretending. His heart throbbed, uncomfortably. Why was he even up here?
Playing along, he crept into the room. Some of the decorative pillows from the bed had been tossed to the floor, and he carefully moved them away so the line from the bed to the door was clear in case of emergencies.
Omega lay there, still as a statue, as he moved around her bed to the direction she was facing. It looked like Lula had slipped to the floor as well. Hunter picked her up and carefully approached the bed. Omega’s eyes squeezed closed, her face half-buried in her pillow. Even in the darkness, the bruise on her temple, pointed upwards, was visible.
Hunter carefully sat down on the edge of her bed and laid Lula down, right by Omega’s knotted hands. What he wanted to do—what felt natural to do— was reach out and drag his hands through Omega’s short crop of hair. But he doubted she would find comfort in such a gesture.
“Omega,” he asked quietly. “Do you need anything?”
For a second he wondered if she might try and keep up the charade, but after a moment she cracked open her eyes and slowly reached out to pull Lula close to her chest.
“No,” she replied, voice gritty.
“You’re sure?”
She nodded, but the motion made her wince. Hunter felt a twinge of sympathetic discomfort. “Okay,” he said, but before he could say more she spoke up, eyes fixed blankly on the space between them.
“I should probably quit soccer,” she murmured.
“What?” Hunter reeled. “Why do you want to quit?”
She cringed, face contorting for a minute.
“You don’t,” he shifted uncomfortably. “The doctor said… that this sort of injury is normal. So you don’t… you don’t have to quit because of that.” He felt truly awful for how he reacted field-side. If Omega thought that he wanted her to quit—but he didn’t want that, he only wanted her to be happy, and she loved playing so much—
“They lost because of me,” Omega said, eyes welling up. “Because I missed the shot and because I left.”
“You don’t know that they lost,” Hunter weakly pointed out. Fuck, he should have texted Cham Syndulla and asked.
“They were losing when we left.”
She sounded so truly miserable. “Omega,” he said softly, “what’s this about? What’s wrong? Does your head hurt?”
Instead of answering, she started to cry, losing her grip on a whimpering little sob that broke Hunter’s heart. Her breathing was tight and pitchy, the words eked out between little sips of air. “It’s my f-fault,” she cried, “a-and they’re all g’nna hate me and make f-fun of m-me.” He tried to say her name, shush her a little, but the words just kept spilling out, each syllable a stab right to Hunter’s heart. “Th-they were all watching, and—and—th-they’re gonna think I’m a freak,” she sobbed out, “l-like before, at school, and it’ll be the same , and I won’t have any friends anymore, and—and—and—” Her pleas dissolved into gut-wrenching sobs.
Some kind of noise came out of Hunter’s chest. “Oh, Omega,” he said, so gently, and she curled up tighter, sobbing harder. “Omega, shh, here, it’s okay…” He gently rubbed at her back, feeling equal parts awful and relieved—awful that he’d let her stew up here in these feelings for so long, that his actions had made her feel like this, but relieved that he could immediately see an out to her catastrophizing.
After a little bit, she calmed down, hiccuping into the pillow.
He kept up the gentling motion of his hand, up and down her back, but then she tensed up. Right—he was still the bad guy, here, and wasn’t as welcome as he once was. Wincing, Hunter withdrew his hand, Omega peeking out one red-rimmed eye to peer at him through the darkness of her bedroom.
He cleared his throat. “Omega,” he said, oh so carefully, “Remember what Dr. Dorme was telling you? About worst-case scenarios?”
It had taken Omega a few months of regular therapy to feel comfortable sharing what happened behind closed doors with the rest of them; they swore a vow never to grill her to tell them what she and her therapist talked about, because that was too much like something Nala Se would do. Hunter liked that Omega felt safe and comfortable enough to share those things with them all, and he tried to commit Dr. Dorme’s tips and instructions to memory whenever Omega relayed them.
Omega turned her face back into her pillow and muttered something.
“No, come on, Omega, sit up. Here, let me look at you.” She didn’t fight him gently tugging her up into a sitting position as much as he thought she might. Though she still kept her eyes lowered, not looking at his face, scowling at nothing, he considered it a win.
He waited. After a minute, she huffed, hugging her knees to her chest. “She says… that the worst-case scenario isn’t the one that’s most likely to happen.”
“Do you think it’s likely,” Hunter said quietly, “that your friends are going to hold losing this one game against you? If they even lost. Do you think Hera would do that? Or Numa?”
Mute, Omega shook her head. Eyes shiny with unshed tears.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You’ve had a long day.” He did not point out that her dire emotional swings were probably another symptom of her concussion. “Your friends won’t hold this against you any more than you would hold it against them, if you swapped places.”
She made an assenting little noise.
“Do you think Numa and Hera are only your friends because you’re good at soccer?”
He knew the answer, and she knew that he knew the answer, but he held quiet, peering at her face, as she squirmed a little bit, healthy color returning to her cheeks.
“No,” she admitted.
“No,” Hunter echoed in agreement. “They’re your friends because you’re kind, and you’re smart, and they care about you a lot. What happened today doesn’t change any of that. Never would.”
She sniffed, lower lip trembling. Hunter swallowed, and came to a conclusion within himself. “I’m glad I came up to check on you,” he said. “I wanted… I wanted to talk, but if you’re too tired, it can wait.”
He couldn’t read her expression. “What did you wanna talk about?” she croaked, shoulders stiff.
“It’s… like what you just told me. About worst-case scenarios.” A little line of confusion appeared between her brows. Force, Hunter would’ve hoped that by now he would be better at this sort of thing. “The reason I acted the way I did, today… it’s not an excuse, but it’s like that. You know that… you know about how I have migraines.”
She nodded, eyeing him warily.
“And it’s not…” He winced, self-conscious despite the years now that he had to get used to this fact. “It’s not all physical. It’s psychological. But… I jumped to the worst possible conclusion, when I saw you get hit. I thought that. That the worst case scenario, was that if I didn’t do enough… that you’d end up like me.”
Omega’s face dropped. “I do want to be like you, though,” she said, jumping to his defense with a speed that had his head spinning.
“I know,” he assured her, putting his hand, heavy, over her ankle, by his side, and squeezing. “But I don’t want to see you have to go through what I do. You’re… you’re my kid, Omega, and I want you to have a better life than I do. With less pain, at least.”
She was about to argue against him again, but he cut her off before she could.
“I know I got mad, and that I didn’t explain my reasons to you,” he said, “and I’m sorry about that. But I’m not sorry about taking this seriously. Even though…” Her words came echoing back at him like the lash of a whip. You sound like Mother!
Evidently Omega also remembered her words, because she spoke up. “I’m s-sorry for what I said,” she croaked out, sniffling. “I only said what I did ‘cause I knew it was mean. And I w-wanted to make you sad,” she managed to squeak out, biting back at gasping little breaths.
Hunter sighed. He had figured that was her intention, but it still stung a little to hear, like she was accusing him of being like their abusive mother anew. “I figured that that was why you said that,” he told her. He didn’t know if she would welcome his touch or not, so he kept his hand on her ankle, squeezing a little.
“It’s not the same,” Omega muttered, visibly torn between looking at his face and glancing away. “It’s not . You’re not…” she swallowed, and an uneasy silence descended.
“Did it feel the same?” Hunter asked, then.
Omega chewed on her lower lip and didn’t answer.
“It’s okay if it did,” he said, although his stomach lurched. Over a decade out from under his mother’s shadow, doing everything he could to scrub the residue of her influence off, only to peer under the rocks of his psyche and find ever-present remnants. “You can tell me, Omega.”
She didn’t tell him. She only nodded, a tight, tiny gesture that was like getting gutted.
It wasn’t about him, Hunter reminded himself sharply. This was about taking care of Omega. He shifted on the bed, withdrawing his hand and knotting it on his knee.
“I know… that Nala Se didn’t respect your choices. About medical… stuff.” That was putting it mildly; putting it mildly felt like a kind of minor betrayal, but there it was. The thought of saying our mother abused you, abused us both, was a bridge too far. Hunter forced out a breath, half a sigh. “I’m sorry,” he said again, “for how I handled this. I never want you to feel like you don’t have a choice in what happens to you. You do. But sometimes I’m going to have perspective on things that you don’t.”
Omega just kept looking at him, and he couldn’t read her expression. Hunter rubbed at the back of his neck, praying that he wasn’t fucking this up further.
“I’m going to work on keeping my cool when you get hurt or sick,” he said. “And I’ll make sure that you know why I’m making the choices I am.”
He wanted to say, You have to trust me, but they understood more than other people did that trust wasn’t a thing you could ever be owed. Their mother hadn’t understood that. When Hunter and the rest of them were young and new to their adopted dad’s household, Ninety-nine had looked them all in the eye and said I want to do whatever I can to earn your trust, and the weight of that statement had felt like a fresh piece of armor, buckled over bruise-tender wounds.
Yeah, Ninety-nine always did make parenting seem so easy.
“Yeah?” Hunter croaked.
Omega nodded. “I trust you,” she whispered, and Hunter could feel his face twisting up in some kind of fucking expression. His baby sister. She always could read him like a book. Her inhale was shaky, but she didn’t say anything more.
“Thank you,” he managed to say, voice wrecked. He tried for what must be a ghastly smile. “I trust you, too,” he added, because he did.
If he wasn’t mistaken, Omega exhaled and relaxed, like some kind of weight slipped off of her at the statement. Then, she winced, and touched at the bruise on the side of her head.
“How does your head feel?” he asked.
Omega shrugged, a tiny, helpless gesture. “Hurts,” she said, avoiding his eyes.
Frowning, and telegraphing the slow movement of his hand, Hunter reached out and brushed his thumb over the darkening bruise; she winced and flinched away from his touch.
“How does it hurt?” he asked, dropping his hand. Before she even answered he started to run down the list of possible fixes—it was still too soon to give her another painkiller, and her stomach was empty besides.
“It’s throbbing,” she said, wincing. “And it’s all warm.”
Yeah, bruises would do that. “Do you want me to go get you an ice pack?” he asked, and started to move.
“No!” Omega said, quickly, almost lunging for him before pulling herself up short. Her eyes stayed on her hands, scowling in frustration and pain. “C-can you,” she swallowed, glanced up at him with shiny, bloodshot eyes. “Lay down with m-me,” she mumbled, almost too low to be heard, “f-for a little b-bit?”
That she even had to ask. That she even thought, clear in her hesitation, that he might say no.
“Here,” he nudged her, “scoot over.”
So quickly that it made his head spin, Omega shuffled over to the other side of the bed, kicking at the covers so Hunter couldn’t not slip under with her. Easy as breathing, she laid down on her unbruised side and snuggled back up against him, pillowing her head on his arm. He draped his free arm over her, and she hugged his elbow to her chest, sighing a little noise as she relaxed into the embrace.
A bittersweet grip of affection locked into place around Hunter’s heart. It had been a long time—months, it felt like—since Omega had last let him hold her like this. The first year she lived with them, sure, any nightmare, ache, or pain saw her clambering into his lap or curling up in his arms, but as she’d gotten older those moments arrived less and less. Which was good , he knew. He liked that Omega was sleeping better, that she was more sure of herself, that she was less easily bruised.
All the same—there was some deep, foundation-level layer of anxiety in his chest that only ever soothed over when he held her close like this. When he could feel her breathing, the warmth of her, there was no room for doubt that he was doing all he could to make her feel safe. He exhaled a slow sigh, hugging her tighter, and she hummed back, nuzzling her cheek against his arm. For a few long minutes, he matched her deep, even breathing, his chest to her back, the room so dark and still and quiet.
When the last of his self control wore out, he ducked his head to press his lips to the top of her head. She wiggled a little, and he loosened his grip, wincing and ready to leave if she nudged—but she only rolled over and tucked her face against his chest, cuddling back up close.
“Don’t go ‘till I’m asleep,” she mumbled into his shirt.
“I won’t,” he promised, and rubbed his hands in comforting circles on her back. “Get some rest, kid.” He swallowed, squeezed her shoulder with his hand. “Love you.”
“Love you, too,” she replied, voice already thick with sleep. Those three little words were, as always, an indescribable relief.
Hunter stayed awake, feeling as Omega relaxed by inches, her breath evening out where she breathed damply against his sleep shirt. She stirred a little, turning her face so her ear was pressed to his heart. He stayed awake, then, watching the sleeping flicker of her eyelashes. He soothed his hand through the soft mop of her hair, and when he felt sleep start to creep up on him, he closed his eyes and let it claim him.
Hunter woke up, groggily aware of several new twinges of discomfort in his body. First things—his legs were sweating, overheated, blankets and quilts bunched down below his knees. He kicked a little with one leg, freeing his foot. He was laying on his belly, no pillow that he could feel—a crick in his neck, his hair in his face—one arm dangling off of the edge of the bed, the other numb and jacked back at a bad angle.
Scowling, Hunter rubbed his face against the material of the fitted sheet to try and get his thoughts going. Rolling his body, trying to free his numb arm, there was a warm, heavy weight over his back. At the motion, Omega grunted a little, and he felt her nudge herself back into a comfortable position.
Well, comfortable for her. It felt like she had her head cradled by the hollow between Hunter’s shoulderblades, one of her arms elbowing the knotty back of his neck. Hunter grunted into the mattress as Omega stabbed him in the kidney with one hard knee.
Alright, time to get tactical. Hunter tried to roll over without bumping Omega around too much; an impossible task, as she made sleepy noises of protest as the valley of his back became the peak of his shoulder, rolling her off of him.
“Hogging the blankets,” she mumbled, which wasn’t what he was doing, but she was probably working off of a fuzzy sense of dim dissatisfaction at the shift. Hunter paused long enough to reach down and grab the blankets, pulling them back up and over them both, tucking the quilt up around Omega’s shoulder.
She was all sleep-rumbled and adorable, squint-glaring at him as he made the mattress shift again as he moved his weight. The room was half-illuminated with the grey light of another overcast day. “I gotta get up,” he whispered in apology, preparing to slip out. He was about to add, I’ll bring you breakfast when she reached out, harrumphing, and secured a grip on his arm, mulishly closing her eyes.
“‘unter,” she whined in complaint, and tugged on his arm. “Five minutes…”
Well. How he could he refuse her such a little thing?
Hunter felt himself relax onto his back, strings cut. Omega hummed her approval, wiggling with half-awake coordination until she was draped back over him, her face squished against the bunched-up pillow between Hunter’s head and his shoulder, one arm draped over his neck. Because he was a sap and couldn’t help it, he tilted his head until his cheek was resting against her temple. She kneed him in the solar plexus, just a little, and he swallowed his noise of complaint.
Omega sighed, relaxing. Hunter patted her back with one hand. “Your head okay?” he asked in a whisper.
She made a noise of muzzy semi-agreement, which had him grinning. “Okay,” he said, closing his eyes, “five minutes.”
Five minutes became ten, became fifteen, became twenty. Half awake, Hunter let the comforting presence of his little sister, safe and well, lure him back to sleep.