Work Text:
Crosshair laid on his back, staring at the depressing grey ceiling above him. The cot in his cell was hard and the musty pillow beneath his head was worn and offered no comfort. Still, he was glad the cell was his and his alone. He had seen two or even three clones sharing the same, tiny cell at a time. He clearly was still in some kind of good graces with Hemlock if he was ready to grant him a luxury like this.
“Lights out!” the voice of a clone guard shouted at the other end of the hallway and the lights in the hallways and cells were turned off. Only the glowing red emergency lights remained, casting an eerie glow to the prison block. Crosshair turned his back to the cell door and tried to ignore the irritating red light and shut his ears from the low hum it emitted.
The nights brought along with them his memories, fears, and the shaking of his hand. He gripped his wrist and willed his hand to calm down before shoving it under his head to give him the comfort his pillow could not give. He closed his eyes with a sigh and hoped sleep would come easy tonight.
He did not know how much time passed before his trained ears picked up the sound of feet shuffling in the hallway. It wasn’t the usual guard rotations, nor a droid. Crosshair opened his eyes and listened as the steps came closer and closer before they stopped right outside his cell.
He knew immediately who was lurking there.
“Go away,” he said over his shoulder, not turning to look at his visitor.
“Crosshair? I need to speak with you,” the voice of the little girl whispered.
“No, you need to be far away from here before they catch you,” Crosshair snapped with a hiss.
Omega had been brought to Tantiss some days ago. Crosshair did not know the fate of the rest of the Batch or what The Empire’s plans for Omega were and he wanted to keep it that way.. It was easier to keep your head low and follow the orders.
“I promise I’ll go if you only spare me a minute!” Omega’s voice pleaded behind him and with a groan Crosshair rose from his cot. Sitting up he now faced Omega, who was crouching right outside his cell door. She was holding a small pocket light next to her face, pointing it at Crosshair.
“Fine, but if anyone catches you here I can’t help you, understand?” Crosshair rubbed his tired eyes and cursed the precious minutes of sleep he was wasting for this. Omega nodded:
“I need to tell you something. You deserve to hear it even if it’s very difficult to,” Omega said, her quiet voice almost breaking in the end. She couldn’t continue for a moment and like a bloodhound smelling blood of the weakened prey, Crosshair perked up:
“I am not surprised they caught you. I’m only interested in ‘how’?” Crosshair sneered as he looked at the pathetic form of the child. Her face was mostly hidden in the shadows but he could see her hair was unkempt and her shoulders were sagged. Her whole being exuded misery and sadness.
“Did they catch all of you? Or did my brothers simply leave the weakest behind to save themselves, huh?” Crosshair couldn’t help the glee creeping into his voice as he let all the poison pour out.
Omega was silent and seemed to retreat more into herself with every word Crosshair launched at her. She turned the light off and now the two of them just sat in the darkness. When Omega did not respond, Crosshair got up and took the two steps it took to cross the cell room floor. He leaned against the door and hissed at the girl cowering at his feet:
“Well? You wanted to talk, so talk.”
Omega got up and without looking at Crosshair again, ran away from the cell. She left Crosshair alone in the dark and ran through the hallway, not caring how loud her footsteps were and if anyone noticed the small shadow moving close to the walls.
Crosshair craned his neck as far as he could to see her go. The poison was replaced by a hollow, sinking feeling deep inside of him. He did not feel better at all even though he had managed to drive Omega away. He hovered near the door for a moment longer, waiting to see if Omega would come back.
She didn’t and Crosshair went back to bed. He tossed and turned all night. That wasn’t unusual – unusual was the sharp edge of anxiety slicing him up.
Omega didn’t return the following night. He saw her once during the day. She was trailing after the kaminoan Nala Se. She didn’t try to meet his eyes in her usual way. When the lights went out at the beginning of the second night, Crosshair was sure he had scared her away for good.
He did not admit to himself the relief he felt when Omega creeped back and sat down outside the cell door again. She looked determined but said nothing or even looked at Crosshair. They sat opposite of each other, waiting for the other to be the one to break the silence first. Omega relented first when she dropped the news Crosshair would have never wanted to hear.
“Tech’s dead.”
Crosshair heard her, saw her mouth form those words, but they didn’t register at first.
The floor seemed to disappear from underneath Crosshair’s feet and he felt like he was floating. Omega’s words didn’t make sense to him and he didn’t understand why tears welled up in her eyes.
“That’s not true!” he simply said and dashed to the door. He gripped at the bars and wanted Omega to take those words back. This was a trick, maybe even Omega’s attempt to get back at him. Crosshair knew she’s not that kind of person, though, so why was she saying something like this?
Omega stood up and pressed herself against the bars as well. She was furious now, pinning Crosshair down with her burning eyes framed with tears. She looked like she could very well hit Crosshair if they weren’t separated by the metal bars. The tears started falling down her cheeks as she trembled.
“Tech sacrificed himself to save all of us! I watched him fall. Hunter said he didn’t make it,” she sobbed now as quietly as she could. She tried to hold it in by biting her lip and pressing her forehead against the cold metal.
Omega was not lying. Crosshair realised what had happened. Plan 99. That old plan they had come up with together as a sacred thing, hoping they would never have to execute it.
Stupefied, he collapsed on the floor when his legs could no longer support him.
Tech’s gone and Crosshair felt like one of his limbs had been ripped out. The Batch had always worked like a singular body and now an integral part of that was gone.
“Tell me, what happened…how did he -?” he whispers but couldn’t finish the sentence. If this were only another nightmare. It would not be the first time he dreamed of his brothers’ demise.
Omega told him the whole story of their escape, Tech’s fate and her recapture. When she described seeing Tech plummeting through the sky, Crosshair felt like he was dying. The pain in his chest was too much to bear and he sank his nails to his arms to ground himself. This truly was real. Omega told him they couldn’t even recover Tech’s body, which now was probably in the hands of The Empire.
“You damn fool,” he whispered when Omega finished her story.
“Hunter said we all would have died if it wasn’t for him.”
“They are dead anyway,” Crosshair hissed angrily. He felt like he might have pierced his skin with his nails.
“How can you say that?” Omega gasped and Crosshair almost laughed at her naivety.
“Don’t you see? Hunter and Wrecker will stop at nothing to get you back. And now they are only two against The Empire. If they don’t manage to get killed before setting foot here, there is no hope for them. They are lost. At least you managed to wiggle yourself into a sort of a deal,” Crosshair got up from the floor and returned to his cot. The conversation was over for him. All of their fates were now sealed.
But Omega didn’t leave. She didn’t turn around and scuttle back to where she came from.
“You are wrong, Crosshair,” Omega said, now with a steady voice. She straightened her back and looked at Crosshair, now slumped on his bed, with something akin to pity.
“How am I wrong?”
“They would never give up on me and you underestimate them. You don’t know what kind of odds we have beaten since we last saw you.”
“Spoken like a fool,” Crosshair attempted with a weak insult. Omega squinted her eyes at him.
“You know he talked about you - Tech,” Omega shot back, not allowing Crosshair to drag the conversation again to that miserable place he inhabited. Crosshair flinched and hung his head. Why couldn’t she just leave him alone?
“They all missed you. Everyone in their own way. Tech taught me everything he could about flying because he missed having a partner. Took me a while to figure out it had been you,” Omega continued.
Crosshair did not reply. He felt empty and had nothing to say. He wanted to be left alone. Overwhelming grief was at the edge of his mind, ready to overpower him and he did not want Omega to witness that.
“I will escape this place. With or without our brothers’ help,'' Omega declared and detached herself from the bars. She gave Crosshair one more look over her shoulder before she left. This time she walked calmly, her steps barely audible as she tiptoed along the hallway.
Crosshair was finally alone but the solitude didn't bring him the relief he had hoped for.
He wanted to lie down and enjoy a dreamless sleep. Like the ones the drugs had given him at the beginning of his time on Tantiss. But the reconditioning hadn’t worked, the drugs had stopped coming and he’d been abandoned to this cell until the day Hemlock would find some use for him. There were days when Crosshair had hoped there would be a squad of troopers waiting for him outside his door, how they would take him to that place where they take the sickest and oldest of the clones and just be done with it. Other days he felt so angry he wished he could yank the bolted down bed and hurl it against the bars of his cells.
It was so dark. He had never liked it. His upper bunk bed back in Kamino had offered him a view of the dark, sparsely decorated room of the nursery they had stayed in. The room had always seemed so big and unsafe. At any time there could be someone standing next to their beds and taking one of the Batch away to be tested and prodded at. With a pang in his chest, Crosshair remembered what had always comforted him: the soft, blue light of Tech’s screens beaming from the bed below. It had always meant Tech was there, fully immersed in his projects and information he gouged out of the databanks. It had meant he was going nowhere. When they had grown up to be soldiers and finally got their very own barrack section, Crosshair had claimed his bed above Tech’s again. It had been the thing that felt most safe and familiar.
Omega came back two nights later. Crosshair had been sure she had just wanted to deliver the news and then would focus on whatever half cooked plans she was planning. Instead she sneaked back and genuinely seemed to want to talk to Crosshair.
“How’re you feeling?” She asked, cocking her head to the side. There was a flash of worry in her eyes.
“Fine. Why do you ask?” Crosshair mumbled as his fingers twitched. He hadn’t been left out all day and he felt restless.
“Crosshair, you look awful. Have you slept at all?”
“You sound like Hunter. Does he still like to worry over the amount of rest and food the others are getting?”
“Yep,” Omega popped the ‘p’ and Crosshair found himself smiling. He shook it off and hung his head before sighing:
“He always told me and Tech were too skinny. He sneaked extra ration bars for us whenever possible.”
“I can try to sneak you food as well,” Omega offered. Crosshair raised his eyebrow.
“Why do you care?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I am going to get out of here and I need your help. Our chances are better if you don’t collapse from exhaustion.”
She was insane. She had to be.
“There is no way out of Tantiss, Omega.”
“Yet. I’ll figure out something. It might take some time, so we must be patient,” Omega said and Crosshair saw that same mad glint in her eyes he had so often seen in his brothers’ eyes. She was serious.
“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” Crosshair said sarcastically and let his eyes roam over the walls of his cell.
“I’m serious, Crosshair.”
Crosshair sighed. She had grown up so much during her time with the Batch. She clearly had become more cunning and hard headed. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Crosshair wondered what the others might say to this insanity? What Tech would have said to her?
Tech would have been on board immediately. He would have agreed with Omega’s plans. Crosshair didn’t believe Omega could get them out of there, but if Tech had died to save her he couldn’t let his brother’s sacrifice go to waste. He would do whatever he could to keep Omega out of the harm’s way. No, he did not intend for them to get out of there with guns blazing as soon as possible, but he could make sure Omega kept her head down, bided her time and did not do anything reckless.
“Yes, that’s what I’m afraid of,” Crosshair said. They heard the sound of boots stomping and Omega had to leave quickly. When she said she’d be back, Crosshair did not stop her. As long as Omega came to see him and talked to him, Crosshaid could keep an eye on her and his own sanity in check.
He owed him that much.