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Rampart told the truth. He gave them Tantiss.
The place that Crosshair never wanted to return to. Where he was strapped to that table and tortured, but never broke under the Empire’s rule. For Omega’s sake, for the sake of his brothers, he fought what the Empire did to him. He fought giving them information, whereabouts, anything he knew. He risked his life, the state of his mind, to keep his brothers safe. Omega safe.
And then Omega was taken back. Right in front of him.
He would’ve fought hell and high water if their conditions were any different. But Omega was right, the Empire was after her, even if admitting something like that was uncomfortable. Giving herself up willingly to them meant that Pabu would be saved, at least for a time. They would stop firing on innocent civilians and take her instead. Shep and Lyana would be safe. Phee would be safe. Deke, Stak, and Mox would be safe. All the innocent families that Omega knew by name would be safe.
She was one selfless kid, and it gave her brothers a heart attack every time.
It was the cost of loving someone.
Hunter has felt it the longest. He was the reason they went back to take her off Kamino. The rest of the Batch warmed up quickly, loving her as if she was their baby sister. Or their daughter.
Teaching her things, like flying, tracking, or hacking into somewhere. Risking their lives for her, whether that was in the form of giving themselves up, stepping in front of her in the face of an adversary, or using their body as a shield between her and an explosion.
It took Crosshair until being imprisoned by the Empire, tortured, betrayed, and inevitably forced together via Omega’s unwavering will did he finally warm up to her. It only took a debate on stealing the Emperor’s ship, bringing the new family lurca hound cross the galaxy, and watching her gamble for 30,000 credits like it was her job.
After that, it was like night and day.
Hemlock was right. Clones are paternal. All clones.
Crosshair pressed his back against the wall behind him, flexing his right hand. He held it up in the view of a nearby light, watching it closely.
It was steady.
He breathed in, turning to Hunter as he gave the signal to move. Crosshair was on his heels, the stock of his rifle pressed into his shoulder. As they approached an intersection, Hunter raised his fist next to his head, signaling Crosshair and Wrecker to stop.
Footsteps. Five sets. Four commandos. One smaller, quieter set.
Omega.
“Plan 55,” Hunter whispered, and Cross moved beside him. He waited for Hunter’s call before he fired, letting the blaster ricochet off the walls of the hallway, hitting all four commandos as they dropped around Omega.
Omega gasped, looking towards the corner that her brothers were hidden behind. Hunter emerged first, his blaster still raised and his knife in his opposite hand, keeping his weapon steady. He approached Omega, checking the commandos around her, making sure they were dead. He sheathed his knife and blaster and kneeled in front of Omega, laying a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. With her hands still cuffed, she leaned forward, embracing Hunter as best she could. She brought her hands up, resting them against his chest piece as she laid her chin on his shoulder.
He quickly embraced her, giving her a gentle squeeze. “Glad we found you as quick as we did.”
Hunter pulled away and Omega watched as Hunter leaned toward one of the commandos and grabbed the key around his belt. He held her hands in his, unlocking her handcuffs. He smiled at her briefly as she rubbed her wrists from the restraints. “We need to go back for the kids,” she declared as Hunter stood. “And Emerie.”
Hunter looked at her, appalled. His voice was deep, a mix of shock, disbelief, and downright anger. “Kids?”
“Mhm. Emerie helped me get out, she’s a clone like us. She’s still in the vault with them, but they knew you were coming. I can show—”
Hunter stopped her, a hand on her shoulder. “You aren’t going back in there at all. Crosshair, get her out of here.”
She looked up at him, giving him that determined glare she always loved. “I need to help, Hunter.”
“You have helped,” he assured. Those kids are about to be free because of you. Now it’s your job to get out of here. Safely.”
Omega sighed, but swallowed and listened. She looked up at Crosshair who was avoiding eye contact with her.
“Wrecker, you’re with me.”
Wrecker laughed, pounding his fists together. “We goin’ to blow this place up?”
“Soon. We gotta get these kids out first. Crosshair,” Hunter turned toward him, meeting his brother’s gaze through their helmets. “No stuns. Get her out.”
“Way ahead of you,” he said, double-checking his rifle was set to kill.
“We’ll meet you two on the west side,” Hunter said, unsheathing his knife and running down the rest of the hall, Wrecker on his heels.
“Let’s go,” Crosshair said, raising the stock to his shoulder again and moving away from Omega, checking the nearby hallways.
Omega stood still, watching him. Her eyes were set on his hands. His right hand.
It was shaking.
“You didn’t land the tracker.”
It wasn’t spoken as a question, and it wasn’t aimed to blame. It was an observation. A truth.
She knew what he was like. She saw the way he’d grown since they escaped Tantiss together. She knew he was protective and she knew he carried weight from Tantiss. Weight from his experience from the dreaded facility, yes, but for her, too.
It was somewhere he never wanted to go back to, for any reason. And to know that he was the reason she returned—
His lips quivered inside his helmet at her comment, but he didn’t move. Nothing noticeable enough for Omega to catch on.
But she didn’t need a physical indicator to know what he felt.
“You can’t blame yourself, you know.”
She could feel his sigh, even at the distance they were at.
“You can’t, Crosshair.”
He finally turned to her, frustrated. “Someone has to be blamed. That… shadow clone was barely off the ground and those stormtroopers were already dead.” He paused, looking through his scope at the hallway his brother disappeared down. He spoke again, his back to Omega. “There’s no one to blame but me.”
Omega stepped toward his still turned back, using her hands to speak, as if she could see him. “I should be blamed more than you. I made the choice in the first place to let them take me.”
Crosshair turned his head, the chin of his helmet grazing his shoulder. “No, you can’t carry that blame.”
“Why not?”
He sighed, heavier this time, and turned to face her. “Because we’re responsible for you! I’m responsible for you.”
Omega scoffed. “And that makes me unable to blame myself for something I decided to do?”
“No. But you’re a kid. I don’t wa—” he stopped himself and cracked his jaw, trying to settle his breathing. “You can’t blame yourself for every little thing.” He turned his head to the side—a mix of guilt, and sighing at the idea of having an emotional conversation in the middle of Tantiss. “It’ll take you down a bad road.”
“The same could be said about you.”
Crosshair scowled. “Don’t turn this on me. We’re supposed to protect you, and I failed to do that. I failed to land the tracker so that we could find you sooner. Before Hemlock started—”
Crosshair’s tone was treading the line between a snarl and a shout before he cut himself off. It wasn’t her fault, Crosshair knew. But, to him, this was an unforgivable failure. It wasn’t just a setback or a mistake that could be fixed in the future.
Just like she didn’t want to return to Kamino. Just like she never wanted to see Tipoca’s city’s white as snow walls ever again. The place where she was created, yet never felt like she fully belonged. The place where she was used more than she was appreciated or seen as someone worthwhile.
Tantiss was the same way. Fortified walls, the same white or grayscale color along every wall, the only color being the red in the entrance of the Vault or the blue of a clone commandos visor.
Now that Tipoca City was destroyed, there was only one place that she could possibly go back to that hurt, confused, and traumatized her.
And Crosshair let her go back.
Omega reached over and grabbed his hand, held it, and looked up at him. His breath caught in his throat as he registered her hand in his. With the same degree of trust and acceptance that he had when they meditated together on Pabu, he let her guide him towards the ground. He kneeled on one knee in front of her, his rifle still in his grip.
Omega looked through his visor for a moment, trying to find his gaze through the right side. After a beat, she raised her arms and placed them on both sides of his helmet. Crosshair went completely still, frozen solid at her gesture. Slowly, she pulled the helmet off his head and away, holding it between them. He still avoided her gaze as she cocked her head at him.
She stood up straight, trying to find that positive spark in her voice. “I'm okay now. See?”
Being ‘okay’ wasn’t good enough for him. He needed her to be far, far away from Tantiss. He needed the six months of her imprisonment to be wiped from her memory. He needed the scar on the back of her hand from getting blood drawn to be completely healed. He needed any other scar, memory, or ounce of guilt and blame to be done away with, like it never existed.
He needed her safe.
She was a child.
“You don’t… deserve all that’s happened to you,” he admitted, still avoiding her eyes.
“At least I wasn’t alone,” she said, her hands still holding his helmet in front of her. She rubbed her thumb across the side of it. “I had you.”
He breathed, eyeing his helmet in her hands. He scoffed at her comment, flexing his hand around the rifle. “Like I was very willing to be anything for you back then.”
“Didn’t matter if you were. You’ve always been my brother, Crosshair. You helped me to not give up.”
Being her brother was never anything of interest for him. Early on, with or without his chip, he had no interest in her. No intent on returning home. No interest in there being a kid in their group.
They were soldiers in a war. There was no room for some kid.
Crosshair looked at her then. She didn’t start with a smile, but when he met her gaze with wide, sad eyes, she did. A smile filled with hope. Belief. One that was still so new to him, that seeing it almost felt uncomfortable.
But Crosshair breathed through it, letting her be the optimistic, hopeful little kid that she deserved to be. The one he finally gets to know.
Omega placed his helmet beside them and turned back, immediately putting her arms over his shoulders and crossing them around the back of his neck.
His eyes widened in shock, his left hand lazily hanging in the air, his right hand grasping the trigger guard.
It was shaking.
Wrecker hugged him and Hunter together after they survived the Ice Wyrm on Barton IV, but Wrecker’s not exactly as gentle as Omega.
Or as small.
“There is no we.”
”Forget me.”
“If I get the chance to escape, I wouldn’t think twice about leaving you behind.”
”Don’t risk anything for me.”
She still found her way to his heart. It was easy. Hunter, Wrecker, Echo, Tech were the quickest. Rex warmed up to her the second he met her, and even Phee didn’t take much convincing.
Maybe their time at odds made it that much better. Made it easier, at least for Crosshair.
For him to be given a false sense of security and purpose by the Empire. To be ultimately betrayed and used by those same people who claimed that his skills were useful to them. To be damaged, seemingly beyond repair.
To being given a true sense of security by Omega and his brothers, even if he still walked it with trepidation. To finding a purpose and a place again in the family he thought he lost for good. For Omega to love him the whole way through, and for him to fall back to Hunter and Wrecker like the last piece of a puzzle that brought the picture back together.
To be brought back to hope. To the light. To the goodness that the Empire thought they ripped from him.
Little brother, she called him, but it didn’t matter if he was younger or older. His purpose, now, was to protect the girl who never gave up on him, even after everything. That was worth more than anyone or anything could offer him.
Crosshair took his right hand off of the trigger guard and brought it up, placing it between her shoulder blades. He brought his left hand up, but kept it lower, holding her at the middle of her back.
The way she hugged him told Crosshair she had no intent of letting him go. But, with their situation, they couldn’t stay long. His hold on her was nonchalant, uncaring, but when she adjusted her head against his, ready to pull away, that changed.
He pulled her closer. It wasn’t quick, it wasn’t a motion that crushed her to him, but he pulled her back. Kept his right hand between her shoulder blades, the ends of her ponytail barely grazing his knuckles, and his left was brought farther across her middle, holding her to his chest.
For a moment, he shut his eyes. He paid close attention to the way she held him back, more than happy to keep their embrace where it was before she tried to part with him—her arms tightly wrapped around his neck.
It was almost humorous much love she held in her small frame.
Crosshair opened his eyes, ready to peel away from her. He returned his left hand to the middle of her back and loosened the pressure on his right hand between her shoulder blades. He paid extra attention to his right hand as he relaxed his grip, focusing on the feeling in the depths of his palm and the ends of his fingertips.
It was steady.