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Irreparable regrets physically ache, Echo realizes, as he lays in his borrowed bunk. They feel like a crushing weight on his chest, pressing the air out of his lungs, making his breathing come in short, measured gasps. He doesn’t want to wake his squad mates, doesn’t want to alert the one on watch that he is not taking grateful advantage of this opportunity to sleep. But he can’t sleep, because familiar faces haunt the darkness behind his eyelids. Exhaustion isn’t enough to claim him this sleep cycle, and so he stares at the bunk above him, trying to regulate his breathing, trying to blink back the burning tears of longing weariness and deep pitted sorrow.
There is movement. He catches it in his peripheral, and Hunter is noiselessly slipping out of his bunk. Echo turns his head away so that Hunter won’t see the glint of his open eyes. He is surprised that it is already shift change. However, Hunter doesn't leave the room. Instead, Echo feels a looming presence leaning over him.
“Echo,” Hunter whispers, “are you alright?”
Echo swallows, giving up the act of sleep. He sits up on his elbows, meeting Hunter’s gaze in the dim light of the cabin. Even during a sleep cycle, it is never completely dark. “I’m fine,” he lies, trying for a convincing and comforting grin. It wobbles, betraying him.
“C’mon,” Hunter says, jerking his head toward the galley just outside the door. The sergeant doesn't wait for a response, already walking away before Echo can think of declining.
Echo slips from the bunk less gracefully, his prosthetic legs still feeling unfamiliar and clunky. He tries to tread lightly, for the sake of Tech and Wrecker, still in the depths of restful sleep, as he makes his way to follow Hunter out of the bunk room.
Hunter is poking around the cupboards when Echo comes into the incredibly small galley. It is just a table with four seats, a countertop with one burner and sink, and some cupboard space for rations and whatever else the Batch manages to tuck away. It is nothing like the galleys and dining halls on the starships Echo was accustomed to...before.
“I’m going to have tea,” Hunter says, his gruff voice soft with a whisper and the remnants of sleep. “You?”
“Sure, if you’re making some,” Echo tries to reply casually. His throat still feels tight with suppressed emotions, and he clears it with a grunt. “Thanks.”
Hunter gives a hum of affirmation, pulling out a kettle and filling it. He sets it on the burner to boil, then drops a teabag in two regulation mugs, the GAR symbol etched into the sides.
Echo drops down at the table. The silence is awkward and expectant, like Hunter is waiting for Echo to fill it. However, the ARC simply stares at his hand, clutching like a lifeline to the end of his scomp. Back before, he would have had his hands folded on the table, flesh clasping flesh. Now his fingers curl around cold, lifeless metal, unforgiving corners pressing into his palm.
The rumble of boiling water speaks up instead, and Hunter pours it in the mugs deftly before setting the hot, empty kettle into the sink. He brings the steaming mugs to the table, placing Echo’s carefully in front of him with a faint thunk.
“Thanks,” Echo says again.
Hunter’s mouth quirks in a grin, and he sits down across from him. The grin melts into a concerned frown. “You haven’t been sleeping,” Hunter murmurs.
Not a question. A fact. One Echo would be foolish to deny. He doesn’t fully understand Hunter’s enhancement, but he knows that Hunter can tell when someone is truly asleep and when they are faking. It has caught Tech multiple times when Hunter has ordered him to bed. Echo had thought until now that Hunter hadn’t noticed him, didn’t know him well enough to recognize how he breathed in sleep, how his heart beat when at rest. Apparently, Hunter had simply been giving him space. Until now.
Echo’s mind drudges through possible and potentially believable explanations he can give; however, the list is incredibly short. He settles on the truth. “It doesn’t seem real,” he admits. “Being here. Being alive. My brothers...” Brother. “...gone. I see them when I sleep.”
Hunter gives an understanding nod, but Echo knows he doesn't understand. How can he? And Echo wouldn’t want him to. It stings, nonetheless. He takes a scalding sip of tea to tamp down the bitterness. He doesn’t care that it burns his tongue. The pain is a welcome alternative.
“Rex told us a little bit,” Hunter says, turning his mug in his hands, staring at the steam curling up from its gaping mouth. “Not all of it, but enough to know that it must be difficult.”
“Excruciating,” Echo corrects, his voice barely audible.
But Hunter hears him clearly, and his gaze snaps up to meet Echo’s eye. Embarrassed by the slip of emotion, Echo looks away.
“What can I do, Echo?” Hunter asks, “I know there isn’t anything really, but I’d like to try. We are a poor substitute for what you had, and we won’t try to replace your first brothers. But I’d like to think...” Hunter pauses, hesitating. Echo glances up and sees that Hunter is furrowing his brow, eyes searching the tabletop for words. “I’d like to think that we’re your brothers too. We’re here for you, in any way you need.”
Any response Echo might have had to the clearly heartfelt sentiment from his new leader catches in his throat behind the throbbing grief he’s been swallowing back ever since he woke in that room. Ever since he realized that he’d closed his eyes to one reality and woke up to another. Ever since, he wished he’d never come back at all.
But Hunter is now watching him earnestly, dark eyes shadowed by genuine empathy and gentle kindness. A man who got up in the middle of the night to draw him aside in the stillness, make him tea, and offer what he can to soothe Echo’s raw and bleeding anguish.
His leader. His brother.
Something in Echo shatters.
“I just wish,” Echo chokes past the lump knotted in his throat, “that I’d been able to say goodbye to him.” He bows his head, hiding the tears that readily come, that soak his face. He tries to cover them with his flesh hand, but nothing can quite muffle the sobs that come in painful, choking gasps. Not from Hunter.
A hand grasps his shoulder, a comforting, grounding pressure. “I’m sorry, vod.”
Echo leans into his brother, and for what feels like hours cries into his chest. Hunter doesn’t pull away, doesn’t make a move to leave. He stays, solid and present, as Echo falls apart. It was what Echo did for Fives after Rishi Moon Outpost; what Fives did for Echo after 99 died in his arms. And just like those times before, the tears finally dry up, and the sobs even out into soft, exhausted breaths.
“You are good brothers,” Echo whispers, knowing that Hunter will hear him. “You’re not a ‘poor substitute’ for those I knew before you.” He pulls away, wiping away the residue of tears from his face.
Hunter sits next to him, his hand never leaving Echo’s shoulder. “Do you want to talk about them?” he asks. Something like hope tints his tone, giving it an encouraging lightness even in the huskiness of his voice.
Echo might not have been able to say goodbye to them...to him...in words or gestures; however, maybe, if their memories live on through him, goodbyes are an unnecessary evil. So, Echo gives his new brother a smile and a nod, and begins, “I knew Fives the longest...”