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Something wakes him from the deepest sleep he can ever remember having the sheer joy of experiencing. At first, it annoys him, then it infuriates him. The depths of his unconsciousness had been unprecedentedly peaceful somehow. And someone has the audacity to wake him up. What is so kriffing important that it can’t wait five more minutes?
“What, what?” he growls out, covering his face with both hands.
“I’m scared,” a little voice trembles in his ear.
Fury evaporates; however, the damage is already done. When he turns his head to look at his sister, she looks on the verge of tears, wide eyes glittering in the dim light of the night cycle.
“Omega?” Hunter whispers.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn't have woken you up,” she says.
Hunter sits up on his elbows. “No, kid, don’t be sorry. I just thought you were Wrecker.”
A startled grin breaks across Omega’s face. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Hunter says with a chuckle. “He used to wake me up every night to grab Lula for him when he’d drop her from the upper bunk. That’s why we started making him keep her on Kamino.”
The smile lingers but quivers at the edges as it starts to falter.
Hunter sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bunk, then pats the space next to him. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re scared of?”
Omega sits down next to him, and blinks up at him in surprise when he drapes the GAR issue blanket over her shoulders. She draws it closer to herself, clutching at it with fists under her chin. “Thank you,” she whispers, but doesn’t say anything else.
Hunter waits, listening to Omega’s heart rate change from a frantic patter to its normal, at rest pace. It reminds him of Crosshair’s heartbeat after he had a nightmare back on Kamino when they were cadets, when his brother would slip into Hunter’s bunk without a word passed between them. Comfort in presence alone.
“I know we’re on a ship,” Omega says after a long while, “and that we are in hyperspace…but I thought I heard a creature.”
“A creature?” Hunter asks, thinking of the vermin that sometimes find their way aboard when they’re planet side.
“Like the Ordo Moon Dragon,” Omega clarifies.
Hunter chuckles. “I think we’d know if that sorta thing snuck on board, kid.”
“I know,” Omega says. “But…I heard weird breathing.”
“Snoring?” Hunter asks. “We’ve got a few brothers guilty of that.”
Omega wrinkles her nose. “No, it was like a sniffing sound.”
“Hmm,” Hunter hums thoughtfully.
“Could you just…check for me? Just in case?”
“Check for monsters?”
Omega nods. “Like in the hatch?”
Hunter hesitates, weighing his options. He knows, and he knows Omega knows, that there can’t really be anything Ordo Moon Dragon-like up in the hatch. Climbing up there to “check” is a waste of time. And yet, Hunter finds himself pushing himself to his feet. “Sure, kid. I’ll check the hatch.”
“And the gunner’s mount? And the fresher?”
“Yeah, kid, I’ll check.” And he does. He pulls himself up into the hatch, glances around long enough for Omega to believe he checked , then he peeks into the gunner’s mount and the tiny closet they made into a fresher when they first acquired the Marauder .
Omega is still perched on the edge of the bunk when he returns, his blanket still swaddled around her.
“All clear, kid,” he tells her.
“Are you sure?” she asks.
Hunter nods. “Very.”
Omega glances toward the back of the ship where the gunner’s mount is. “Can I sleep here with you tonight?” she asks, her voice small, almost as though she hopes Hunter won’t hear her. But of course he does.
“Is something else scaring you?” Hunter asks, dropping back down beside her.
Omega shrugs her shoulders. “I have bad dreams sometimes. About Kamino. About being alone. Sometimes I wake up and I forget that I’m not anymore.”
Hunter smiles softly. “I suppose this bunk can fit a soldier and a half.”
A gasp of joy escapes Omega’s lungs. She clambers up into the bunk, positioning herself between the wall and where Hunter will lay. Just like his brothers always used to do when they’d hide from storms as cadets. Hunter had always felt proud that his brothers believed they were safe with him between them and whatever fears lurked out of sight and reach.
If only that were true.
And if the past few weeks on the run from the Empire had taught Hunter anything, it was that they weren’t invincible afterall, that some fears are tangible dangers, and he has no power to stand between them and his siblings. Not anymore. Or maybe never at all, and it has always been an illusion.
He knows that, and his brothers know that.
But right now, as he lays down next to his baby sister, she believes it might be true. That as long as Hunter is by her side, he can keep his promise. That he’ll protect her, that she’ll always be with them.
But as her breaths even out, the gentle inhales and exhales of sleep, Hunter lies wide awake.
He hopes that he can make the illusion real, that he can stand between the galaxy and her.
But hope can only hold for so long.
END