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Omega shoved open the door and kicked it loudly shut behind her. By the noise, she vigorously kicked off her shoes, threw down her backpack, and stomped into the house.
Echo, in the living room reading a book, waited.
Tracking her movements by her comically loud stomps, Omega first poked her head into the kitchen, then crossed the main hallway to check the living room. Trying to school his grin, Echo purposefully kept his eyes on his book, not acknowledging her.
She huffed. Adorably.
More stomping, and she threw herself face-down onto the couch next to him, groan muffled.
Echo carefully turned a page.
In his periphery, Omega picked her head up, glaring at him. “Ugh!” she groaned again, louder and more pointedly.
“Oh, Omega,” he said, moving his book off of his lap. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I need advice,” she said without preamble. “Good advice, big-brother advice,” she clarified, quickly.
Intrigued—she didn’t seem very upset, which was an interesting contrast to the earnest urgency in her eyes—he pivoted on the couch so he was more fully facing her. “Shoot.”
“I was hanging out with everyone after school today,” Omega began, like it was nothing, setting the scene, but the fact that his once lonely and bullied sister had a steady group of friends warmed Echo’s heart. “And we were all talking about, you know, being adopted and stuff.”
Now there was an interesting thing. Growing up, Echo, Fives, and their cousin Rex were the only adopted kids they knew, the only ones in their school—and then all of the batch got added to the house, and that circle both got wider and smaller at the same time. That Omega was living in a big enough city, in a diverse enough school, for a majority of her little friend group to be from nontraditional families, was a hell of a thing.
First of all there was Omega, living under the guardianship of her older brothers, then Numa, adopted by Waxer and Boil after a stint in the foster care system, Cal, adopted by his single father, and while Shaeeah and Jek weren’t in Omega’s school, she still considered her cousins some of her best friends and chatted with them every day.
Shaeeah and Jek’s stepfather (their dad , Echo always felt like correcting, stepfather far too light a word for Cut’s consistent, dependable love and trust) was a family cousin, and had been a great help for them all in the early days of Omega being in their custody, always willing to share his experiences with stepping up into a parental role for kids that weren’t biologically his.
“Alright, I’m with you, friend group hanging out,” Echo said, nodding.
“Well, this other kid who always makes fun of Cal in gym class” Omega sneered, which made Echo fight to keep from smiling, because she sounded a hell of a lot like Crosshair when she talked like that, “overheard us and just said that he was sorry that we all had to ‘go through that’ and that he wished we had ‘good parents’ who wanted to keep us.” Her air-quotes were dripping with disdain.
Echo winced. He’d gotten that, too, in different degrees of sincerity, at all ages whenever he had to outline his short biography to new acquaintances. People sometimes meant well, wishing for what they saw as a better life for him and his brother. Both of his biological parents had called it quits on him and Fives, Jango at birth and his mother a short year later. If it hadn’t been for their kindly old great-uncle Ninety-nine stepping up and adopting them, they would have ended up in the system before they even turned one.
He understood the instinct, if he was giving this other kid an assumption of good intentions. He didn’t doubt that that kid would be hurt, and devastated, if his parents (assuming he had both, still) just gave him up out of the blue and he had to move into a new family. That the kid assumed that Omega and her friends would feel the same about parents that were either abusive (Omega’s mother Nala Se), willfully absent (Shaeeah and Jek’s bio-dad), or unfortunately no longer with them (Numa, Cal) was the root of what he anticipated coming next.
“So I turned to him and I was like,” Omega pushed herself up to imitate the way she had stood, arms crossed, leaning forward a little, and, yeah, she got that pose directly from Tech, which was hilarious. Echo hid his helpless grin behind his hand, miming deep thought as he watched the reenactment. “‘At least my brothers wanted me to be part of their family. All of our parents picked us, we weren’t random like you .’”
It was a sentiment Echo had used himself, growing up. Well. He’d used it, up until he got old enough to understand that especially in Rex’s case, adopted by their uncle Paz, it was not the same as his adoption by Ninety-nine. Ninety-nine was not shy about expressing his love, encouraging them to learn about their bio-parents, even meeting with Jango time and time again to try and keep a relationship with him. Paz, to contrast, banned all mention of Rex’s mother Arla in the house, locked up photos of her, and was not shy about reminding Rex that every meager bit of care he was given he was not owed, and should be grateful for.
So it wasn’t a surprise when Omega’s face fell, shame crumpling her a little before she choked out, “And then when he was walking away, I looked over and Hera looked… kinda hurt. And she was quiet. And didn’t really say bye when she started walking home.”
Echo winced in sympathy. Hera was the only one of Omega’s little friends with both parents still in the household, good, solid people that Echo had met a handful of times at birthday parties and soccer club dinners.
Omega groaned, hiding her red face behind her hands. “Why did I say that?!” she grumbled, and flopped back over on the couch.
Plenty of reasons, least of all that she was growing up in a household of guys who didn’t hold back on the venom when talking about their own responses to the judgements of others. Maybe they ought to go with a softer touch, there, but the damage was done.
“That kid was out of line, or at the very least, really misinformed,” Echo said, gently.
“But Hera was right there and I didn’t even think about it,” Omega groused, face pressed into the cushions. Echo leaned over to pat her back, and she sighed, picking her face up and laying her cheek on the cushion, pouting. “She’s my best friend and I just said that, right in front of her. I don’t know whether I should text her or call her or whether she ever wants to talk to me again.”
“I doubt it’s that big a deal, kiddo,” Echo said, gently. Then, he backtracked, “I mean, you should probably talk to her. Tell her that you don’t think that about her family, that you didn’t mean to hurt her—why you said that, how much it hurt for that other kid to say that, why it’s hurtful. She might not know that you were just reacting to your family situation getting insulted.”
Omega looked perfectly miserable. “I don’t know why she’d want to listen to me,” she grumbled.
“Everybody makes mistakes,” he replied. “You’re still kids. And, even if she wants some space, for a little bit, as long as you apologize and try to make things right with her, that doesn’t make you a bad person.” Again, he reached over and patted her back, rubbing a little as she sighed and melted further into the couch.
“This sucks,” she said, muffled.
“Yeah,” he agreed. He shifted his hand, so he was making little tapping chopping thumps against her back, up and down her spine, and her exasperated little laugh was a good sign.
With a little ‘mmph,’ she flopped over and wiggled up the couch until her head was resting on Echo’s leg, careful of the hard angles of the prosthetic socket. He nudged her, and she picked up her head for long enough for him to grab a throw pillow and tuck it behind her head. That done, he swapped to gently passing his fingertips through her hair, petting at her, as she gratefully closed her eyes.
“So,” he spoke up after a minute, “what’s the review for the big-brother advice.”
She blew out a breath between loose lips, considering. “You were okay,” she declared, magnanimous as ever. Her eyes opened, looking up at him, still kind of soft and sensitive around the corners. “Do you think I should text or call her?” she asked.
Okay, officially out of his depth—they’d been too poor to have cell phones when they first got popularized, and by the time texting took over calling for the main method of teenager communication, he’d stopped being a teenager.
His indecision must have shown on his face, because Omega waved one hand. “If I text her, she can reply whenever she wants.” A flash of painful consideration passed over her expression. “If she even wants to. But if I call her, she can hear my voice, and that might be better. But if she doesn’t want to talk to me she might not like that I called.”
“Could always wait until you see her tomorrow at school,” he proposed.
“Yeah.” Closing her eyes, Omega wriggled some more, so she was curled up on her side, head still pillowed on Echo’s thigh, facing the living room. She sighed, a heavy, despondent noise.
“Aw, kiddo,” he sighed alongside, rubbing at her shoulder. “This sucks.”
“ You’re telling me, ” she grumbled.
“No, I know, I know,” he replied, chuckling a little. “I mean, being thirteen. Definitely the worst age.”
She grunted an affirmative.
For a few minutes, they sat like that in silence. Which, despite the sorrowful funk, was always nice to do with Omega. Echo loved his brothers, but he also liked some peace and quiet every now and again, a sentiment he knew that Omega shared.
A thought hit, and Echo cleared his throat. “There’s another option,” he proposed. “An old-school, big-brother option.”
Omega twisted to look up at him. “What?”
The rideshare let them out on the curb in front of the Syndulla house. Omega shifted her weight from foot to foot, waiting for Echo to pull himself up to standing, catching his balance on the grassy road verge.
The only thing keeping her from bolting was the knowledge that Echo had called Hera’s mom to check in and see if it was okay for her to come over, because she wanted to apologize to Hera for what she’d said.
Omega hadn’t wanted to overhear the phone call, but Echo told her, anyway, when she came back downstairs, that they were welcome to come over, but while Hera had seen drawn and quiet after school, she hadn’t told her mother or father anything. Whether that was a good or bad sign, Omega couldn’t say.
The Syndulla house was nice, really nice, about the same size as Nala Se’s house—while in the same neighborhood, technically, they were on opposite sides, which was a relief. It was weird, and a bad kind of funny, to think that Omega’s best friend had been living a dozen blocks away for the last few years of her closed-up childhood, kept locked up by her mother. They might have even driven past Mother’s stark white colonial with their moving van, when they finally arrived from Ryloth.
Echo lightly touched her shoulder, breaking her out of her funk. He nodded, face an even mix of encouragement and sympathy. Omega inhaled on a count of four, held it for four, and exhaled. She could do this.
Together, they walked up the long walk to the front door.
When Echo didn’t move to hit the doorbell, Omega squirmed and barely poked it with her finger. It chimed, a familiar sound; Omega had listened to that bell over a dozen times before sleepovers.
Eleni Syndulla opened the door. Hera took after her mom, and it always threw Omega for a little loop, that the statuesque woman who carried herself like a queen looked like a grown-up version of her best friend.
Right. Best friend. For now, at least. Omega wilted a little under Mrs. Syndulla’s calm smile.
“Omega,” she greeted them, “Echo.”
“Ma’am,” Echo nodded, while Omega squeaked something embarrassing.
She let them in, and they toed their shoes off in the entryway. In her socks, Omega felt a few necessary centimeters shorter, trailing behind the adults through the foyer, towards the kitchen.
“Hera is in her room, Omega,” Mrs. Syndulla told her, tone kind. “She knows you’re coming, you can go talk to her.”
Omega stood there. “Okay,” she said.
Echo’s face softened. Lips pressed together, he gave her an encouraging nod. He said it was probably no big deal—or something she could fix. Omega nodded back, and walked on stiff legs down the familiar hallway, leaving Echo and Mrs. Syndulla chatting quietly together.
Hera’s bedroom door was half-closed. No noise inside. Omega swallowed down her anticipation and knocked on the door. “It’s me,” she added, perhaps a bit unncessessarily.
“Come in.”
Omega pushed inside the spacious bedroom. Hera sat on her bed, her school stuff scattered around her desk. Chopper, Hera’s cat, glared up at Omega from Hera’s lap, and at her approach, went all spiky and hissy, and yeah, Omega deserved that.
“It’s just Omega, Chop,” Hera chided, gently, and dumped him on the floor. He hissed once more, and slunk to go hide in his little scratching-cave. Twin yellow eyes gleamed out from the shadows of a cartoonish frog, mouth open wide.
“Hi,” Omega said, standing awkwardly in the middle of Hera’s room.
“Hi,” Hera replied, sitting in the middle of her bed, not quite looking at her.
There was an awful bout of silence.
“My mom… said you wanted to talk to me?” Hera prompted, glancing up from under her lashes.
Show time. Omega took in and released a long, careful breath, forcing her hands to unknot from fists at her sides.
“I wanted to apologize for what I said at school,” she said, words bursting out in a guilty rush. “I saw how upset you looked, and you didn’t say bye like you usually do, and, and I’m sorry I didn’t text or call but I just wanted you to know—I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to apologize because you looked really hurt.”
She shut her mouth. Hera looked at her, blinking a little in surprise.
“You… didn’t want to wait?” she echoed, her accent a little stronger, like it usually went when she was having trouble translating, like when she had to answer a question asked by a fast-talking teacher.
“Yeah,” Omega said, like it was obvious. “I would… when I get upset about stuff, sometimes it makes it hard to sleep,” she admitted. “A-and I didn’t want you to have to go through that. I’m sorry for what I said, I didn’t mean it.”
Hera looked at her. Gaping a little. Omega squirmed some more.
Then, miracle of miracles, Hera scooted to one side of her bed, drawing her legs up. Making room. Omega quickly went over and plopped down into the open space, pulling her legs up to sit cross-legged. She watched as Hera’s eyes skirted around, thinking to herself before she spoke.
“I… was upset,” she confirmed. “After I heard what you said. Sometimes…” she drew her knees up tight and wrapped her arms around them, eyes slightly averted, “it feels like I’m left outside of things. Like when you and Numa or Cal talk about being adopted.”
Omega’s heart twisted. “I’m sorry,” she said again, “I never meant—I never meant to make you feel left out when we talk about stuff like that.”
“I know you didn’t mean it like that, it never bothered me like this before.” Hera picked at a loose thread on her quilt. “Like I would feel a little left out, and that wasn’t great, but ever since this afternoon…” She squirmed, a little, and Omega had never seen her friend look so wretched. “I was wondering if you always thought of me like that.”
“No!” Omega exclaimed. “Never, Hera, I promise—I only said that so whatshisface would feel bad, because he’s always picking on Cal and I knew he only said something to be mean.” She hoped, desperately, that one ounce of the regret she was feeling was visible on her face as Hera glanced up. “I-I didn’t stop and think that you were right there until afterwards. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”
They sat together, and it killed Omega second by second.
What did Crosshair tell her, that one time after he’d yelled at her? That a good apology wasn’t an excuse, but an explanation so the person getting apologized to didn’t blame themselves.
“I don’t think that way about people who aren’t adopted,” she spoke up. Watching Hera’s face, desperately tracking every little twitch. “Honest, I like you a lot, and your parents. They’ve always been so nice to me and they really love you a lot.”
Hera glanced up at her, and it was Omega’s turn to look away, down to Hera’s quilt. It was faded and old, from Ryloth, a particular pattern. She’d told her about it, her first time staying overnight.
“I only said that because I wanted whatshisface to feel the way I felt when he said that he was sorry I didn’t have a real family,” she said to the quilt. “Bad. And abandoned.”
Glancing up, she saw that Hera clearly didn’t understand, expression drawn and a little confused.
“When I first got to school,” Omega said, quietly, “in my first class of the day, they had me tell everyone my name and give a fun fact about myself. And I said that I live with my five older brothers, because I thought that that was cool and interesting.”
“Except afterwards,” she continued, “Everyone kept asking me questions, during class, and after it, too. Stopped me in the hallway and asked me why I lived with my brothers, whether our parents were dead.” She swallowed, throat suddenly tight. “A-and when I said that no, my mom’s still alive, they asked, So what’s wrong with her, then? and I just—”
Day one. Over a year ago, now. It was hard for Omega to put herself back in that place, because she recognized that with that year came a lot of changes. She was less timid, now, knew what kind of treatment she deserved and what didn’t.
At the time, contemplating a sea of expectant, strange faces—she’d never been around so many people her age, all at once—the thought of saying My mother used to experiment on me. She used to put nodes on my head to track my brain imaging while I did tests for hours. Then I’d do the same tests with half a night’s sleep to compare the results. Then she’d sedate me so I’d sleep for 12 hours and then take them again … made her feel like throwing up.
And then the next class had come. And they’d asked her to tell everyone her name and something interesting about her. And as much as Omega wanted to say something else, anticipating the barrage of questions, but she’d frozen. Mind completely blank. What else could she possibly say? She didn’t play sports, had only read a handful of books, seen a handful of movies (and all cartoons), had never traveled or gone on trips or anything—her brothers were her entire world, and she loved them for that.
So she said the same thing. And got the same stares, the same invasive questions hurled at her in aside whispers, in the hallways.
And in the next class, too. And the one after that. And the one after that.
“--I just felt like such a freak,” she finally landed on.
“Omega,” Hera said, so softly, and Omega shook her head.
“No, I—I know , it’s just… I hate it when people think that just because I’m with my brothers, it’s worse than people with a… a ‘real’ family, you know.”
Hera frowned. “Your brothers are your real family,” she said. “I know that.”
Omega swallowed. “I know you do. That’s why—I’m so so sorry, Hera. You’re not like him, you’re the best, and I hurt you anyway because I cared more about getting back at him than making sure I was being nice to you, too.”
Hera nodded, silent, eyes drifting off of Omega as she thought.
It was hard to swallow. “It’s okay,” Omega said, “if you don’t want to be friends after what I said. I understand.”
That made Hera’s head snap around, staring at her. “Why would I—” she blinked, confused, “why wouldn’t I want to be friends with you any more?”
Then it was Omega’s turn to blink. “B-because I said something mean and didn’t consider your feelings,” she said, tentatively.
Hera’s face only softened further. “And you came all the way over here to apologize,” she said, slowly, “so I wouldn’t feel bad tonight.”
“Yeah,” Omega squeaked.
And at that, the last of Hera’s reserve melted away, and she held her hand out across the bed, towards Omega. “Then I forgive you.”
Omega gaped at her hand, then her face. “Really?”
Hera nodded. “I get why you said that, and I believe you that you don’t think that way about me. And,” she added, “you’re my best friend. So.”
The heat of triumph came flooding through Omega’s system. She’d started to feel self conscious about how blotchy her blush was, but now, she was too happy to care. “You’re my best friend,” Omega said, seriously, grabbing her hand and shaking it. “Forever.”
To her relief, Hera smiled back, and released her fingers to hold her hand up. Grinning, Omega first hit their palms together in a high-five, then Hera held her hand down low—Omega swung like she was trying to get a low-five, but at the last second they both dodged, ‘flying’ their hands away over their shoulders; their secret best friend handshake.
They stayed in Hera’s room, talking and laughing, each minute just feeling lighter and brighter as they were able to return to their old, comfortable place next to each other. Why she ever thought that Hera would want to stop being friends with her because of a stupid little jab, she had no idea.
At one point, Mrs. Syndulla appeared, poking her head in and catching them both laughing, holding their middles as they wheezed.
“Well,” she announced, propping one hand on her hip. “It looks like you’ve both made up.”
“Yeah,” they chorused back together, grinning wide.
“Good.” Her eyes glinted, smiling with a slightly smug air. “Like I told you,” she said, pointedly to her daughter.
Then it was Hera’s turn to sheepishly blush. “Yeah,” she agreed.
It was getting towards dinner time, so without needing to be asked, they both got up and followed Mrs. Syndulla back into the kitchen. Something was in the oven, and Echo sat up on a barstool, a glass of water in front of him.
“Okay?” he asked, with the same little smug look. Adults; they always thought they knew so much.
“You were right,” Omega told him, begrudgingly, knowing it would make him grin.
“I know,” he replied, grinning as he finished off his glass of water. “Well, they’re singing our song.”
“You’re not going?” Cham Syndulla, Hera’s father, said, appearing in the doorway that Omega knew led to his office—strictly off limits, since he was a city representative and a lot of important documents were stored in there. “The two of you are more than welcome to stay for dinner. There’s enough to go around, no?” he asked, moving over to touch his wife’s elbow.
“Definitely more than enough,” she answered, and pecked him on the lips.
“Ew,” Hera groaned, while Omega shyly averted her eyes.
“We wouldn’t want to impose,” Echo spoke up, but the way adults usually said that when they didn’t mean it.
“No imposition at all,” Mrs. Syndulla said.
Omega and Echo shared a glance. Back at the house, it was Hunter’s turn to cook dinner.
“Yes, thank you Mr. Syndulla—”
“Dinner sounds great, sir, appreciate it—”
Their excitement made Mr. Syndulla laugh, and Omega beamed sideways at Hera. Catching her eye, Hera grinned back. The last little iota of doubt was banished from Omega’s mind. Hera—her best friend, forever.