Work Text:
“Did you ever try to make contact with us before the war ended?”
The question itself doesn’t surprise her, only that it took so long for one of them to ask. Omega kneels to pick up another smooth stone from the sand, adding it to her pocket. “I tried, but Nala Se always caught me.”
Crosshair mutters a curse under his breath. “Kriffing long neck.”
“And what would you have done with me during the war? If I had managed to make contact?” Omega asks, and the question is only partially rhetorical. She often wondered what her brothers might do if they’d known she was there, or if they would do anything at all.
Even after they found her, she’d been left behind, and Omega thought her course was set.
But so long as her brothers were safe, she had been ready to accept the lot she’d been given.
“Something,” Crosshair returns.
Omega snorts. “Vague and foolproof. I like it.”
Crosshair bumps into her hard, nearly toppling her into the tide lapping the beach. “You know what I mean,” he grumbles.
“I know,” Omega assures him, regaining her balance to bump back into him.
They continue walking down the beach, Omega finding agates and rocks worn down by sand and sea.
“I’m…sorry,” Crosshair says, voice so low that Omega almost doesn’t catch it over the murmur of the waves.
She looks up at him, but he doesn’t look back at her, eyes determinedly set ahead. “I don’t blame you guys for not knowing about me, Crosshair.”
“Not that,” Crosshair bites out. “For how I was…when we did find out…about you.”
“That was the chip–”
“Not all of it. I tried to send you away. On Kamino.”
Weighing her options, Omega finally replies, “You’re not the first brother that tried to send me away.”
That snaps Crosshair’s gaze to hers. “What?” he demands. “When? Who?”
“Hunter,” Omega says. “After we escaped Kamino the first time. He didn’t think they could take care of me the way I needed, so he sent me away with Cut and Suu. Obviously, I didn’t stay with them more than a few minutes before I ran back to the Marauder .
“At the time, I’d thought it was because I’d done something wrong. I’d spent my whole life dreaming of being with you all again, and I couldn’t just let it go because of a stupid mistake I’d made. But now, I understand that Hunter was afraid of the mistakes he’d make…that he believed he already made.”
Like leaving you behind goes unsaid.
“At least Hunter was trying to offer you a safer life,” Crosshair mutters. “I was trying to get rid of you.”
Omega wraps both of her arms around his left one. “And look at us now,” she says sweetly.
“Hm.”
Omega roots herself in the sand, forcing Crosshair to stop walking. “I forgive you, Crosshair. Of anything you think you need to apologize for.”
He’s not looking at her again. “You shouldn’t make it so easy,” he tells her bitterly.
“You’re my brother,” Omega says. “I love you.”
She doesn’t think he’ll say it back, but she knows it all the same. Her brothers love her, all of them. She’s seen it in their actions, felt it in their determination. Omega may have doubted before they found her again, may have wondered if she could step outside of their love’s reach. Not anymore. She knows it deeply.
“I love you too.”