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It’s been three weeks since Omega found her brothers again on that moon over Ryloth. Three weeks since hearing Hemlock’s voice, three weeks since seeing his face looming over her. Three weeks since the darkness, three weeks since the tests, three weeks since Tantiss, three weeks, three weeks, three weeks. It feels like just yesterday and Omega can still hear Hemlock’s voice in her ear, still see his face in front of her. It always seems dark now and the coldness in her bones won’t leave. She’s frozen through and nothing can thaw her out.
Omega doesn’t sleep anymore. She tries, of course she does, sleep is all she wants right now. To disappear into the sweet oblivion of rest and wake up to her brothers and find out that everything was just one awful bad dream. But that doesn’t happen. When Omega does fall asleep, she sees her brothers on Tantiss, chained next to Crosshair and screaming for her to save them, but she can’t. She can never save them.
On the really bad nights, Omega can see Tech in her dreams. They’re falling together, careening through the sky and hurtling towards the ground and he’s smiling at her. It’s a twisted thing to look at, even in life Tech never quite learned how to smile. But he smiles at Omega and there’s blood dripping from his mouth, running down his cheek from the gash on his temple. His goggles are cracked and a shard of glass pierces his eye, his left arm is bent awkwardly, his ribs are sticking out of his armour.
‘Plan ninety-nine, Omega,’ he says every time. Over and over and over. ‘Plan ninety-nine… Plan ninety-nine.’ Over and over and over again. And then…
‘You didn’t come back for me,’
‘You left me behind,’
‘You abandoned me,’
Omega feels sick every time she wakes up, her skin crawls with shame and she curls over herself, crying softly into her arms. She can’t tell Hunter any of this, can’t bear to put anymore on his shoulders when he already looks like a man cursed to carry the weight of the world. In all of her time on Tantiss, she never considered that he might have changed. Whenever she imagined coming home, it was always to the same family but they aren’t the same. Everything is different. Hunter most of all.
He’s always been their rock, the one to fix everything and the one to tell them it will all be okay when it feels like nothing will ever be okay again. Everybody has relied on Hunter at some point but now Omega thinks that he might just crumble. Everything is falling apart and Omega isn’t sure there is anyone or anything that can ever make this better.
Hunter is taking first watch tonight, sitting on the ramp of the ship to keep an eye out while Crosshair and Wrecker head to bed. Omega was tucked in an hour ago, Hunter brought her up and kissed her gently on the head, pulled the blanket up to her chin and wished her sweet dreams. All the while, he smiles at her, the smile he reserves for only her but his eyes are dead. There’s a deep seated exhaustion there she doesn’t think he realises everyone else can say.
Cross and Wrecker don’t go to bed, though. Omega can hear them talking below her, voices hushed so the Sergeant can’t hear. At least, Crosshair tries to speak quietly while Wrecker, as ever, struggles to maintain a low volume.
‘What's wrong with him?’ Crosshair hisses to his brother. There’s rustling from the bunkroom, no doubt the two stripping off their armour for the night.
‘Hunter’s fine,’ Wrecker insists. He’s never been good at lying, anyone with two ears and a few brain cells between them can see through him. ‘He’s just tired,’
‘There’s a lot more going on there than ‘just tired’. Try again, Wrecker,’ Crosshair shoots back harshly. ‘He didn’t hear me coming into the cockpit earlier, I’ve never seen the man jump out of his skin like that before,’
There’s a loud sigh and a thump, no doubt Wrecker slumping down on his bed in exhaustion. He doesn’t respond for a while and Crosshair doesn’t push him, merely waits. Crosshair has always been a patient man, but Omega isn’t and she waits with bated breath for Wrecker’s explanation.
She hasn’t noticed Hunter’s hearing; the man can hear everything, in fact she’s surprised that he hasn’t come storming up the ramp yet to tell his brothers to stop talking about him. As far as Omega can tell, he’s still sitting outside the ship.
‘He doesn’t hear so well anymore,’ Wrecker says eventually. Crosshair scoffs.
‘Not possible,’
‘How would you know? You weren’t here!’ Wrecker snaps. Omega recoils slightly, shuffling away from the curtain as though trying to avoid the inevitable backlash Crosshair will give for that. It doesn’t come.
‘I know,’ Crosshair mutters. ‘That’s why I’m asking,’
Wrecker grumbles something unintelligible and there’s a moment of silence before he decides to continue their conversation.
‘He has to concentrate now to use his senses, I think. It always looks like hard work when he does. Do you remember that time we were trapped for days in that cave. We didn’t sleep, didn’t eat for days and we could see better than him… I think it’s like that,’
‘Too much stress on his body,’ Crosshair concludes. Omega leans back against the wall, an awful feeling in her gut because she knows this is her fault. If she hadn’t let Hemlock take her, if she’d have been better and escaped sooner, been better… Hunter would be okay.
This is all her fault. She can never tell Hunter.
***
Hunter has always been very good at knowing when something is wrong. He knew that night that Echo wasn’t in their bunk room that he needed to find him, he knew when Wrecker wasn’t eating enough anymore after Tech’s death. Hunter always knows.
Right now, he knows that something is wrong with Omega. Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to know this after all that the girl has been through in the last year. It’s more than any child should have to endure and Hunter will never forgive himself for allowing it to happen to her. Dark bags hang under her eyes and she’s always up before everyone else and Hunter wonders if she’s even getting any sleep.
The girl can hardly walk straight anymore, she’s always bumping into things and more than once Hunter’s caught her staring blankly into space. It’s like she simply doesn’t have the energy in her body to conjure a single thought. Sometimes she’ll nap in the cockpit if one of her brothers is there to keep her company, but for the most part, it seems that she isn’t sleeping anymore.
Every night, either he or Wrecker will tuck Omega in with the promise that they’re not far if she needs them and he figured she never said anything because she’s been dead asleep, but this clearly isn’t the case. It isn’t until one night, when Hunter is lying awake in the aftermath of his own nightmares, that he hears her.
Omega must think they’re all asleep, because she moves quietly down the ladder to her room and begins creeping through the bunkroom. Hunter doesn’t make a sound until he can hear her just about to walk through to the common area.
‘Shouldn’t you be asleep?’ he asks, eyes still closed as he lays on his back, merely inclining his head a fraction towards her. Omega freezes.
‘I thought you were asleep,’ she whispers back. There isn’t really a need to whisper with only Crosshair and Wrecker around. Those two would have slept through the entire war if they were allowed.
‘Likewise,’ Hunter points out. He can hear Omega shifting on the spot, the way she does when she wants to say something but isn’t sure how to say it. ‘Come here, kid,’
Opening his eyes, Hunter pushes himself up to sit on the mattress, flipping up his pillow to rest against the durasteel behind him. He flicks the switch next to his bed so the little reading lamp in his bunk comes on, just enough that he can see Omeg’s face as she scuttles over, clambering onto his bed and tucking herself right up under his arm.
‘What’s goin’ on? You haven’t been sleeping,’ he pushes gently, nudging his shoulder against her.
‘I can’t sleep anymore,’ Omega confesses, though her eyes are beginning to slip closed as she slumps against Hunter’s side. ‘Don’t wanna dream,’
In the few years of having Omega by his side, Hunter has learned that she has a never-ending ability to shatter his heart into pieces with only a few words. If he could wrap her up in a big blanket and fix all of this, he would, but nothing can stop the nightmares. Hunter knows this only too well. There’s only one thing that has ever helped him.
‘Do you wanna talk about them?’ he asks her softly, leaning down to speak just into her ear. Omega sighs heavily against him.
‘I don’t know,’ she says. Hunter doesn’t push this time, merely allows the silence to stretch between them comfortably. He can hear her breathing easily against him, Crosshair is snoring softly across from him and Wrecker is playing games on the datapad while he takes watch in the cockpit. Hunter could sit here for years and never grow tired of the near silence. It’s everything he could ever ask for.
After everything they’ve done and everything they’ve seen, don’t they deserve this? After all the fighting and the loss, don’t they deserve their happily ever after?
He just wants his family to stay like this forever, together in peace with no wars to fight and no rebellions to win, just them. Them and the stars. That’s what Wrecker would always say in the darkest days of the war, when they were sure that they’d never see another sunrise. He’d conjure up a whole life they could have lived and everyone would listen, even if they really only wanted him to shut up.
‘I’m always alone… and it’s so dark and cold,’ Omega pipes up suddenly and Hunter has to quickly rip himself from his thoughts to pay attention. ‘At first they had me in this tiny cell, I don’t know how long I was there… it felt like years,’
Hunter squeezes Omega’s shoulder gently, giving her space to organise her thoughts but letting her know that he’s here for whatever it is she needs to say.
‘I kept calling for you… They said you were dead, that they went back and killed you all. I don’t want you to be dead,’ Omega’s voice breaks as she’s cut off abruptly by a gut-wrenching sob.
Hunter immediately pulls her closer until she’s half in his lap and clinging to his torso desperately, sobbing into his chest unabashedly. It’s not right that these awful sounds could come from someone so small, so young, and yet here they are. And Hunter can’t fix it.
He wasn’t there when Omega needed him and he’ll never live that down. But he’ll spend every day for the rest of his life trying to make it up to her.
‘I’m not going anywhere, ad’ika. I’m staying right here,’ Hunter promises vehemently, cupping her head to his chest and pressing a firm kiss into the curls there. Her hair is getting so long, he’s going to have to trim it to keep it tidy now.
‘I’m sorry, Hunter, it’s all my fault,’ Omega sniffles, pushing her head further into Hunter’s chest. Hunter frowns down at her.
‘Sorry for what? You haven’t done anything wrong,’ he tells her firmly.
‘I- I don’t know,’ Omega seems to deflate next to him, like she is about to tell him something and then decides against it before she can speak. ‘Can I sleep here? With you?’
Hunter knows she’s merely changing the subject to avoid saying whatever it is she was about to. He lets her, though, if that’s going to get her to sleep. Truthfully, he was going to go offer to relieve Wrecker of his watch so he wouldn’t have to go back to sleep himself, but he can’t say no to the child next to him.
‘Always, ad’ika,’ Hunter smiles softly at her, trying so hard to make the gesture reach his eyes but they’re so heavy and he’s not sure it quite works. He doesn't think she notices.
The two settle down together on his small bunk, Omega all but melds herself into his side, resting her head on his chest and twisting her fingers into the thin fabric of his blacks. He presses a kiss to the top of her head.
‘Sweet dreams, kid,’ he tells her and reaches up to flick off the lights, but Omega springs up and grabs his arm before he can. Hunter winces as she jams her palm into his diaphragm in an effort to push herself up to stop him quick enough. He hopes she doesn’t notice that either.
‘Leave it on,’ Omega whispers.
Rarely one to argue with her, Hunter nods his head and lowers his hand, using it to guide Omega back down to rest against him once more. He runs a hand up and down her back as she drifts off, swearing to himself that he’ll stay awake all night to watch over her in her sleep.
The sound of her soft breaths slowly evening out is a little too mesmerising for him and, combined with the comforting weight of her against him, Hunter struggles to keep his eyes open after a while. It isn’t long before he’s following her off into sleep, still holding her tight to his chest.
And that’s exactly how Crosshair and Wrecker find them as the sun comes streaming in the viewport the next morning and they both agree that, for once, they’ll let their sergeant sleep in while they handle the work for the day.